Elliott Yamin Biography (Courtesy Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

Elliott Yamin (born Efraym Elliott Yamin on July 20, 1978) is an American singer who is known for being the third-place finalist on the fifth season of American Idol.

Biography

Early years

Yamin was born in Los Angeles, California to an Israeli father of Iraqi Jewish descent, Shaul Yamin, and a Jewish American mother of Ashkenazi descent, Claudette Goldberg. He relocated to Richmond, Virginia with his family when he was 11 years old. His parents divorced when he was 14 and his father moved back to Los Angeles. Elliott has resided in Los Angeles since competing in the fifth season of American Idol.

Yamin discovered his singing talent singing karaoke late in his teens. Although he had not been musically trained, he sang in a local jazz band and in amateur performance forums, emulating Stevie Wonder,Whitney Houston, and Donny Hathaway. He attended Douglas S. Freeman High School in Richmond, Virginia. He dropped out of high school in his sophomore year, but later achieved a high school graduation equivalence certificate while working in one of the many jobs he held before auditioning for American Idol.

Yamin is 90% deaf in his left ear, and was diagnosed with Type I Diabetes at the age of 16.

American Idol

Yamin auditioned in Boston, Massachusetts singing Leon Russell's "A Song for You"., but his audition was not aired. He was sent through by the judges and made it through to the finals of the competition.

During one weekly rehearsal, Elliott was told by guest coach Stevie Wonder that he should definitely pursue a career in music. Simon Cowell even stated that he thought Yamin was "potentially the best male vocalist" ever on American Idol and later, after Yamin's "A Song for You" performance, he declared that it was a "vocal masterclass." Cowell also said after Yamin's performance of "Moody's Mood For Love" that Yamin's song selection might be "too cool for the room."

Yamin was eliminated from American Idol after the tightest race; each of the three top contestants received an almost exactly equal percentage of the viewer votes necessary for advancement to the remaining two spots.

Semi-finals:

• Week 1: "If You Really Love Me" (Stevie Wonder)
• Week 2: "Moody's Mood For Love" (James Moody)
• Week 3: "Heaven" (Bryan Adams)

Finals:

• Week 1: Stevie Wonder - "Knocks Me Off My Feet"
• Week 2: Songs of the '50s - "Teach Me Tonight" (Al Jarreau)
• Week 3: Songs of the 21st Century - "I Don't Want To Be" (Gavin DeGraw)
• Week 4: Country Songs - "If Tomorrow Never Comes" (Garth Brooks)
• Week 5: Queen - "Somebody to Love"
• Week 6: Songs from The Great American Songbook - "It Had to Be You" (Frank Sinatra)
• Week 7: Love Songs - "A Song for You" (Leon Russell as performed by Donny Hathaway)
• Week 8: Songs from the contestant's birth year (1978), Songs from the Top 10 of any Billboard Chart - "On Broadway" (by Barry Mann & Cynthia Weil, recorded by George Benson); "Home" (Michael Bublé)
• Week 9: Elvis Presley - "If I Can Dream"; "Trouble"
• Week 10: Clive Davis' pick, Judge's pick, Contestant's pick - "Open Arms" (Journey); "What You Won't Do For Love" (Bobby Caldwell); "I Believe to My Soul" (Ray Charles, as performed by Donny Hathaway)

Finale:

• Yamin performed a duet with Mary J. Blige and participated in the Top 12 Burt Bacharach's medley and the 'guys' medley'.
  • "One" (U2 as performed by Mary J. Blige & U2) with Mary J. Blige
  • "A House is Not a Home" (by Burt Bacharach)

After Idol

Yamin appeared on several talk shows, such as the Tonight Show, Live with Regis and Kelly and the Fox News Channel program, Dayside. On June 11, 2006, Yamin performed the national anthem a cappella at Game 2 of the NBA finals.

Yamin appeared in the annual Pop Tart-sponsored country-wide tour between July and September 2006, singing Nickelback's "Savin' Me" (duet with Chris Daughtry), three solos ("Moody's Mood For Love" (James Moody), "Never Too Much" (Luther Vandross), and "Trouble" (Elvis Presley)), and three group songs.

On October 8, 2006, Yamin performed at the Virginia State Fair as the closing act. He was the first contestant from Season 5 to have his own solo concert. His backup band was the Little Memphis Blues Orchestra. There was no new material featured in the concert. Instead, he sang nine cover songs:

• "Use Me" (Bill Withers)
• "Ready For Love" (Bad Company)
• "Little Ghetto Boy" (Donny Hathaway)
• "I Believe To My Soul" (Donny Hathaway)
• "You've Got a Friend" (Carole King)
• "Empty Arms" (Stevie Ray Vaughan)
• "I Love You More Than You'll Ever Know" (Donny Hathaway)
• "What's Going On?" (Marvin Gaye)
• "Whipping Post" (The Allman Brothers Band)

On October 22, 2006, Yamin sang the National Anthem at the Dodger Stadium (LA) and cut the ribbon for a diabetes walk during JDRF International Walk to Cure Diabetes.

On December 6, 2006, Yamin released a single, a rendition of "This Christmas," on AOL Music.

On December 8, 2006, Yamin sang the National Anthem, Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On?" and Donny Hathaway's "This Christmas" as part of the 2006 Genworth Children's Advantage Classic (sponsored by the Genworth Foundation) at the Alltel Pavilion at the Virginia Commonwealth University's Stuart C. Siegel Center in Richmond. He sang it at a tennis event featuring James Blake, Andre Agassi, Lindsay Davenport, and Steffi Graf.

Entertainment Weekly.com ranked his performance of "A Song For You" as the 3rd greatest "Idol" performance of all time on their top 10 all time best American Idol performances from the first 5 seasons.

In December, he announced a music publishing contract with Sony/ATV Music Publishing. On January 25, 2007, Yamin signed a record deal with Hickory Records and RED Distribution, which will promote the album. Yamin has stated that "Sony invested in [him] as a partner" as part of a 50/50 deal, which means that "they both stand or fall." He maintains a close friendship with American Idol winner Taylor Hicks, as well as with fellow contestants Bucky Covington and Ace Young.

In May of 2007, Elliott sang the national anthem at a NASCAR Busch Series race in Richmond, and the next night he sang "God Bless America" at the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series race.

Yamin started his first solo tour on May 17, 2007, in Alexandria, VA., and is due to last till June 21, 2007. The city for the last concert will be Anaheim, California.

On May 18, 2007, Yamin teamed up with the Oscar Mayer team to launch the 2nd annual Oscar Mayer "Sing The Jingle, Be A Star" contest, from May 24, 2007, to October 31, 2007.

A diabetic himself, Yamin helps and works as a spokesman for different organizations, such as the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF).

2007: Elliott Yamin

As a teaser for his album, Yamin released a song from his album, "Movin' On", on AOL's first listen and iTunes. His first radio single, "Wait For You", was released on March 13.

Yamin's debut album was released on March 20, 2007. To promote his album, Yamin made TV appearances on Live with Regis and Kelly, The Ellen DeGeneres Show, Jimmy Kimmel Live, and TRL, where the video for the song "Wait For You" was premiered. He also stopped by the NY Times Square Virgin Megastore for CD autographs and had a CD release party at Circuit City on the 21st in his hometown, Richmond. The album debuted at #3 on the Billboard 200 chart selling 96,000 copies in its first week. The album is the highest-ever debut for an independent artist in the history of Billboard magazine. Yamin is currently performing in his first solo national tour, with pop/R&B singer Josh Hoge opening for him.

On May 16, 2007, Yamin performed his hit single, "Wait for You", on the American Idol Season 6 Top 3 results show, which caused the song to jump 60 spots on iTunes in a few hours as well as from 80 to 31 on the Billboard Hot 100. Also, the performance saw an increase in sales for his self titled album, Elliott Yamin, jumping 47 spots on the Billboard 200, from 67 to 20.

Discography

In 2005, Yamin was featured on three tracks ("Sound Doctrine", "Song of Hope", and "Whatchacomeherefoe?") of local gospel musical artist Big Planz's album Sound Doctrine. Four renditions of another song he recorded with Big Planz, The Storm, were released on iTunes.

In 2006, Yamin's rendition of "Moody's Mood For Love," originally by James Moody, is featured on the CD American Idol Encores.

In December 2006, Yamin released his rendition of Donny Hathaway's song, "This Christmas", online to AOL Music and iTunes.

His debut "teaser" single, "Movin' On" from his eponymous debut album was released onto Music.AOL.com on February 13, 2007. The single was also made available on iTunes.

On March 13, 2007, he released his first radio single, "Wait For You", on iTunes.

On March 20, 2007, his debut, self-titled album was released on Hickory Records.

On July 4, 2007, Elliott performed in D.C. at "A Capitol Fourth" on PBS--the country's biggest 4th of July celebration. Other people performing at the celebration were: (veteran actor) Tony Danza, (gospel legend) Yolanda Adams, (Rock-N-Roll Legend)Little Richard, (Country Singer) Dierks Bentley, and (actress and singer) Hayden Panettiere.

As of the week of August 4th, Elliot Yamin has been sensational with his music video "Wait for You" on vh1's Top 20 video countdown. He has had the number one video for 2 straight weeks starting the week of July 14th and more recently won the number one spot in the week of August 4th. The week of July 28th he came in second place, being succeeded by "Hey there Delilah" performed by the Plain White T"s.

On August 16, 2007, he announced his second radio single, "One Word", on Fox 5 News in Washington, DC.

Studio albums

Album Information
Elliott Yamin Release: March 20, 2007 (U.S.) Label: Hickory Records U.S. Billboard peak: #3 U.S. sales: 381,000 RIAA certification: TBA Singles: 2007: "Movin' On" 2007: "Wait for You" 2007: "One Word"

Singles

Year	Song	Album	U.S. Hot 100	U.S. Pop 100	Adult Top 40	Mediabase Top 40	Canadian Hot 100	RIAA certification
2007	"Wait for You"	Elliott Yamin	13	5	15	3	22	Gold
2007	"One Word"	Elliott Yamin	TBA	TBA	TBA	TBA	TBA

Others

Year	Song	Album	U.S. Hot 100	U.S. Pop 100	U.S. Digital Songs	RIAA certification
2006	"Moody's Mood for Love"	American Idol Season 5: Encores	101	73	76	-
2007	"Movin' On"	Elliott Yamin	61	49	37	-

• Notes:

1. "Moody's Mood for Love" was not released as a standard single in the United States; no songs from the American Idol Season 5: Encores CD were made available as singles for radio airplay. The chart position was attained strictly from sales of the individual track from various Internet music download sites. It peaked at #1 on the US Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles chart thus equaling a U.S. chart position of #101.
2. "Movin' On" wasn't released as a single, but was released as a pre-album track release to U.S. online music retailers.
3. "Wait for You" was the first official single released. It was aired for the first time on March 1, 2007. It was added to Z100 NYC's (the most listened radio station in the U.S.A.) Top 40 list on late May, 2007. This made of Yamin one of the few independent artists to be played on that radio station.
4. For the issue date of April 7, 2007, Billboard reports that first week sales of this album made him reach the #3 position on the Billboard 200. Billboard also announced that his album debuted at #1 over all Independent Albums. Selling close to 100,000 copies on its first week is the greatest accomplishment for an indie release thus far, making him the highest new artist debut on an independent label in soundscan history. At the same time, entering in at #11 on the R&B/Hip-Hop Album charts, and #2 on the Urban charts.
5. On May 30, 2007, Yamin achieved a chart trifecta on UU-BRU Internet Radio with "Wait For You" (#1 for two weeks in a row), "A Song For You" (which climbed from #7 to #2) and "Movin' On" (down one spot, from #2 to #3). The only other act to do the same is Whitney Houston, who held the top three spots on UU-BRU Internet Radio for two weeks in March 1993 ("I Will Always Love You", "I'm Every Woman" and "I Have Nothing")

Compilation albums

Album cover	Album information
	Season 5: Encores Release: May 23, 2006 (U.S.) Label: RCA Records Peak U.S. Billboard: #3 U.S. sales: 311,946 RIAA certification: Gold

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