David Cook Biography (Courtesy Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

David Roland Cook (born December 20, 1982) is an American rock singer-songwriter. On May 21, 2008, he won the seventh season of the reality television show American Idol. Prior to Idol he worked as a bartender at the "Blank Slate" in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and released an album entitled Analog Heart.

Early life

Cook was born in Houston, Texas, and raised in Blue Springs, Missouri. His parents are Beth (née Frye) and Stan Cook. He is the middle of three brothers.

Cook's interest in music began early in life; he received his first guitar at the age of 12. He began singing in second grade, when his elementary school music teacher gave him a solo in a school choir performance. He proceeded to perform in virtually every Christmas and PTA program. He also participated in choir and drama programs in middle school and high school. At Blue Springs South High School, he performed in musicals, including The Music Man, West Side Story, and Singin' in the Rain.

He had also been an avid baseball player during high school. After losing interest in sports, he focused more on music. He earned a theater scholarship to the University of Central Missouri, but he abandoned theater after two semesters, graduating from the school in 2006 with a degree in graphic design. While in college, he was a member of Phi Sigma Kappa. After his college graduation, he relocated to Tulsa, Oklahoma, to pursue a career in music, telling his family, "I just want to give myself until I'm 26 years old to get a job."

Musical background

Cook was the lead singer and guitarist of the band Axium from 1999 until 2006. He formed Axium in his junior year of high school with drummer Bobby Kerr. One of the band's songs, "Hold," was picked up by AMC Theatres Movie Tunes and was played before previews on over 20,000 screens nationwide. Axium was also named one of the top 15 independent bands in the country in the "Got Milk?" independent band contest, and it was chosen as the best band in Kansas City in 2004.

In 2006, after the breakup of Axium, Cook relocated to Tulsa, Oklahoma, and joined the regional touring band Midwest Kings, playing guitar, bass, and singing backup vocals. He recorded one EP, Incoherent with Desire to Move On, with the band in 2006. He also worked as a bartender at several Tulsa clubs, including Blank Slate and Rehab Lounge.

Cook released a solo independent album, Analog Heart, in 2006, for which he also designed the artwork. The album was chosen as the fourth-best CD released in 2006 by website Music Equals Life. Cook also won the Urban Tulsa Weekly's "Absolute Best of Tulsa" award for "Best Locally Produced, Independent Album" in 2007. He had completed recording his sophomore album before his appearance on American Idol. Over the weekend of April 18 to April 20, 2008, Analog Heart was listed as the number one album for "Today's Top MP3 Albums" on Amazon.com. Soon there after, the album was removed from Amazon. His musical influences include Our Lady Peace, Alice in Chains, Big Wreck and Pearl Jam.

American Idol

Overview

Cook auditioned for American Idol in Omaha, Nebraska, performing Bon Jovi's "Livin' on a Prayer." He originally did not plan to try out for the show as he was going on a trip to China; he came to the auditions initially to support his younger brother Andrew (who did not make it to Hollywood) and then decided to try out himself. For his first Hollywood audition, Cook performed "(Everything I Do) I Do It for You" by Bryan Adams, accompanying himself on acoustic guitar. Later in the week he performed "I'll Be" by Edwin McCain.

Cook took advantage of the decision to allow contestants to play musical instruments. Besides his Hollywood audition, he also accompanied himself on electric guitar for his performances of "All Right Now," "Hello," "Day Tripper," "I'm Alive," "Baba O'Riley," "Dare You to Move," and "Dream Big," and on acoustic guitar for "Little Sparrow," "All I Really Need Is You," and "The World I Know." His white, left-handed Gibson Les Paul electric guitar has the letters "AC" on it; as Cook told TV Guide, "I have two brothers, Adam and Andrew. So, because of superstition, I put their initials on everything growing up." Since the Top 12 week, he has also been wearing an orange wristband to support a 7-year-old fan, Lindsey Rose, with leukemia.

"Billie Jean," one of his performances, was highly praised by all three judges, especially Simon Cowell. Cowell later said in an interview with Entertainment Weekly that the performance "was in a different league to anything we've heard on the season so far," and although he knew where the arrangement came from (Chris Cornell's remake of the Michael Jackson original), "that doesn't really matter." The performance has received well over 4.5 million views on YouTube. Another of Cook's performances, "Day Tripper", was credited to Whitesnake. Seattle-based band Doxology has claimed that Cook's performance of "Eleanor Rigby" was based on a version the band recorded over a year ago. On April 1, before performing his self-arranged rendition of "Little Sparrow" on American Idol, Cook responded to Ryan Seacrest in the interview session, revealing that his performance of "Eleanor Rigby" was based on Neil Zaza's and Doxology's versions. He also reiterated the credits of Whitesnake and Chris Cornell. Despite the controversy, critics praised Cook for choosing versions of songs that fit his vocal style. His arrangements of "Hello," "Little Sparrow," "Always Be My Baby," "All I Really Need Is You," "Baba O'Riley," "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" and "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing" were original arrangements.

Cook won the seventh season of American Idol on May 21, 2008, receiving 56% of the votes with David Archuleta as the runner-up. Cook then sang "The Time of My Life", the winning song of the 2008 American Idol Songwriter's Competition.

During the finale, Cook appeared in a commercial for the game franchise Guitar Hero, mimicking Tom Cruise in Risky Business. Fellow finalist David Archuleta appeared in a separate commercial parodying the same scene. Both commercials were directed by Brett Ratner.

Performances and results (during voting weeks)

Week #	Theme	Song choice	Original artist	Order #	Result
Top 24 (12 Men)	1960s	"Happy Together"	The Turtles	3	Safe
Top 20 (10 Men)	1970s	"All Right Now"	Free	9	Safe
Top 16 (8 Men)	1980s	"Hello"	Lionel Richie	6	Safe
Top 12	Lennon/McCartney	"Eleanor Rigby"	The Beatles	6	Safe
Top 11	The Beatles	"Day Tripper"	The Beatles	6	Safe
Top 10	Year They Were Born	"Billie Jean"	Michael Jackson	10	Safe
Top 9	Dolly Parton	"Little Sparrow"	Dolly Parton	2	Safe
Top 8	Inspirational Songs	"Innocent"	Our Lady Peace	5	Safe
Top 7	Mariah Carey	"Always Be My Baby"	Mariah Carey	6	Safe
Top 6	Andrew Lloyd Webber	"The Music of the Night"	The Phantom of the Opera	6	Safe
Top 5	Neil Diamond	"I'm Alive" "All I Really Need Is You"	Neil Diamond	2 7	Safe
Top 4	Rock and Roll Hall of Fame	"Hungry Like the Wolf" "Baba O'Riley"	Duran Duran The Who	1 5	Safe
Top 3	Judge's Choice (Simon Cowell) Contestant's Choice Producer's Choice	"The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" "Dare You to Move" "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing"	Roberta Flack Switchfoot Aerosmith	3 6 9	Safe
Finale	Clive Davis's Choice New Song Contestant's Choice	"I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" "Dream Big" "The World I Know"	U2 Written by Emily Shackleton Collective Soul	1 3 5	Winner

Post-Idol career

For the Billboard chart week ending May 25, 2008, a week following Cook's American Idol victory, Cook broke several Billboard chart records. Most notable was his record shattering feat of having eleven songs debut on the Hot 100 that week, beating the previous record set by Miley Cyrus (Hannah Montana) in 2006 when she had six songs debut on the chart. Cook's first single, "The Time of My Life" led the pack, debuting at #3 on the Hot 100. Cook's eleven charting songs also gave him the most songs by one artist on the Hot 100 of any week in the Nielsen SoundScan era (which began in 1991), and the most of any era since The Beatles placed 14 songs on the chart the week of April 11, 1964. In addition, that same week Cook also broke the record for the most debuts on Billboard's Hot Digital Songs chart, where he placed 14 debut entries, the record of which was previously six set by Bon Jovi in 2007. Cook's 17 entries had a combined total of 944,000 digital downloads in the first week of selling.

Cook is currently due to work with Grammy-nominated songwriter and producer, Ryan Tedder of OneRepublic and Jesse McCartney on his upcoming album. The album is slated to release in the fall of 2008.

Discography

Singles

Year	Title	Chart positions						Certification	Album
Year	Title	U.S.	U.S. Pop	U.S. Digital	CAN	UK	UWC	Certification	Album
2008	"The Time of My Life"	3	6	1	2	61	15	-	The Time of My Life - Single

Other charted songs

Year	Title	Chart positions
Year	Title	U.S.	U.S. Pop	U.S. Digital	CAN	UWC
2008	"Dream Big" (Song from the 2008 American Idol Songwriter's Competition) ^[A]	15	17	7	21	32
	"I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" (Original by U2) ^[A]	22	24	9	17	33
	"The World I Know" (Original by Collective Soul) ^[A]	28	31	14	24	-
	"I Don't Want to Miss a Thing" (Original by Aerosmith)	42	38	21	43	-
	"Billie Jean" (Original by Michael Jackson)	47	39	24	41	-
	"Always Be My Baby" (Original by Mariah Carey)	67	46	29	59	-
	"Hello" (Original by Lionel Richie) ^[A]	73	48	32	57	-
	"The Music of the Night" (Song from The Phantom of the Opera)	77	54	41	73	-
	"Eleanor Rigby" (Original by The Beatles)	92	62	51	83	-
	"I'm Alive" (Original by Neil Diamond)	99	73	60	-	-
	"Little Sparrow" (Original by Dolly Parton)	101	79	66	96	-
	"Hungry Like the Wolf" (Original by Duran Duran)	103	81	68	-	-
	"Innocent" (Original by Our Lady Peace)	104	82	69	-	-
	"Day Tripper" (Original by The Beatles)	114	95	82	-	-
	"All Right Now" (Original by Free) ^[A]	118	-	90	-	-
	"Happy Together" (Original by The Turtles) ^[A]	125	-	97	-	-

Notes

A ^ Live recordings on American Idol

Studio Albums

Axium

2002: Matter of Time
2003: Blindsided
2004: The Story Thus Far

Midwest Kings

2006: Incoherent With Desire To Move On

Solo

2006: Analog Heart

Live Albums

Axium

2004: Alive in Tulsa

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