Daughtry

Daughtry was one of the few American Idol contestants to successfully push hard rock iconoclasm into finalist levels and was also bold enough to jeopardize it to experiment in folk and dance music later on in his career. Despite his recent tendencies to dip his finger in other music genres he has kept true to his principal sound.

Chris Daughtry was born in Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina, US, but spent the majority of his childhood in Lasker. When he was 14 he relocated to Palmyra, Virginia with his parents and eventually moved right outside of Greensboro in McLeansville, North Carolina. When Chris was 16 years old he approached music in a more serious manner, focusing on his skills as a singer and seeking out instruction on the guitar. Chris formed several bands in high school and participated in two high school productions: “Peter Pan” and “The Wiz”.

Chris acted as lead singer and rhythm guitarist in his high school band Cadence and produced one album with the group in 1999 entitled “All Eyes on You”. Chris later joined the group Absent Element and released the album “Uprooted” with them in 2005.

A year later Chris was on American Idol. He auditioned in Denver, Colorado with the song “Letter” a cover of Memphis band The Box Tops (this group was headed by Alex Chilton later of Big Star fame). Daughtry instantly caught on with the general public. He was this season’s answer to the rocker craze that predecessors Bo Bice and Constantine Maroulis previously instigated. Daughtry also had the charisma that sailed across America’s TV sets and the family man attitude that many could empathize with. Apart from Daughtry’s personal and social disposition he swept audiences off their feet with his electric and gritty covers. He made many fans after his cover of Fuel’s “Hemorrhage (In My Hands)”, one of them actually being the band who requested that he be their lead singer. Daughtry also performed a rendition of Johnny Cash’s “I Walk the Line” in the style of the group Live. Despite Daughtry’s trailblazing run on the show he lost out to Katharine McPhee, but at least made it to the top 4 before being terminated.

After his departure from American Idol, Daughtry wasted no time in prepping for album production. Daughtry signed with Idol’s 19 Entertainment group and RCA Records and recruited guitarists Jeremy Brady and Josh Steely, bassist Josh Paul, and drummer Joey Barnes as his backing band. His first album was the all caps self-titled debut “DAUGHTRY”. The album was led off with the hit single “It’s Not Over”. “DAUGHTRY” ranked incredibly high on the charts, staying within the Top 10 for months.

Daughtry already had 5 hit songs in the Top 40 before he issued his 2009 follow up album “Leave This Town”. Daughtry’s next album “Break the Spell” was produced by Howard Benson as was his previous releases. “Break the Spell” had some commercial difficulties in comparison to Daughtry’s past albums; however, it’s single, “Crawling Back to You” skyrocketed to No. 6 on the U.S. Adult Pop charts.

On Daughtry’s fourth album “Baptized” Martin Johnson of Boys Like Girls hopped on board to help give the album a more atmospheric and pop oriented touch. The album was released in November 2013, and was spearheaded with the single “Waiting for Superman”.