Jordin Brianna Sparks (born December 22, 1989) is an American pop singer. On May 23, 2007, she was declared the winner of the sixth season of the reality television show American Idol. Sparks won at the age of 17, making her the youngest winner in American Idol history.
Early life
Sparks was born in Phoenix, Arizona, to a White mother Jodi Wiedmann, and Phillippi Sparks, a former African-American NFL football player for the New York Giants and Dallas Cowboys who at the time was playing in college for the Arizona State Sun Devils. She has a younger brother PJ (Phillippi Sparks, Jr). She lived briefly in the town of Ridgewood, NJ on Orchard Place, and attended Orchard school. Sparks attended Sandra Day O'Connor High School until 2006, then she was homeschooled to better concentrate on her singing.[4]
American Idol
Audition
Sparks first auditioned in Los Angeles, California. She was not invited to Hollywood. She returned home to compete in the Fox affiliate-sponsored Arizona Idol, which she won. The winner of Arizona Idol was guaranteed an audition with the producers of American Idol at the Seattle, Washington auditions. Sparks was featured in the audition episode that aired on January 17, 2007. She sang "Because You Loved Me" by Celine Dion. The judges were overall impressed with her vocals, though Simon criticized her for "being too cute", but Sparks was sent on to the Hollywood rounds of the show.
Semi-finals/Finals notes
Sparks was never in danger of elimination. Sparks is the fourth contestant to have won without ever being in the bottom 2 or 3, joining Kelly Clarkson, Carrie Underwood, and Taylor Hicks. (Season 2 winner Ruben Studdard was in the bottom 2 once, and season 3 winner Fantasia Barrino landed in there twice).
On August 17, 2007, it was announced Sparks had signed to 19 Recordings/Jive Records/Zomba Label Group, becoming the first Idol winner to join the label group — all past Idol winners and runners-up have signed with the RCA Label Group’s J (Fantasia, Ruben Studdard), Arista (Carrie Underwood, Taylor Hicks) or RCA (Kelly Clarkson, Chris Daughtry, Clay Aiken, Katharine McPhee) labels. Sparks has stated that she recorded some songs for the album but the bulk of the recording would be done in Los Angeles after the tour is over. She said the album would be "Top 40, radio-friendly, uplifting stuff" hopefully mixing "the pop rock sound of inaugural Idol Kelly Clarkson with the R&B edge of Beyonce". Her debut album came out on November 20 and November 27, 2007. On The Morning Show with Mike and Juliet, it was mentioned that the album had gone gold.
The album came out to generally favorable reviews. Some critics felt Sparks' vocals were not suited for modern pop music while others thought the album's atypical American Idol material helped Jordin to find a secure future in today's ever-changing music landscape.
Along with the label announcement, the first single was revealed to be "Tattoo", which was released to U.S. radio on August 27, 2007. The song became the album's first top ten single. The next single is slated to be "No Air" a duet with Chris Brown, but Jordin's official website is polling fans to decided whether "No Air", "Freeze", "One Step at a Time," or "Shy Boy" should be the next single.
Wikipedia.org
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jordin_Sparks
