david archuleta

Murray High School

American singer-songwriter

Archuleta won his ticket to the Hollywood final auditions at the San Diego tryouts - held at Qualcomm Stadium at the end of July 2007 - with a performance of John Mayer's "Waiting on the World to Change" with judge Randy Jackson spontaneously joining in to sing the background "waiting" in the song.He was 16 during the Hollywood auditions (where his renditions of Bryan Adams' "Heaven" and Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy" were well-received by the judges) and attended school while a part of American Idol's seventh season.is parents were there because he was a minor.Archuleta also took advantage of the decision to allow contestants to play musical instruments when he accompanied himself on piano for his performances of "Crazy", "Another Day in Paradise", and "Angels." A Los Angeles Times article speculated that Archuleta avoided singing the first verse of "Imagine": because "of his religion (Mormonism), he's unlikely to espouse the song's agnostic ideal . .with the line about 'no religion too.

a salsa singer and dancer from Honduras

"Crush" and "A Little Too Not Over You"

Capricorn

David James Archuleta (born December 28, 1990) is an American singer-songwriter. In May 2008, he became the runner-up on the seventh season of American Idol receiving 44 percent of over 97 million votes. Archuleta's first single "Crush" was released in August 2008; his self-titled debut album was released in November 2008.

David Archuleta was born in Miami, Florida, to Jeff Archuleta and Lupe Marie, a salsa singer and dancer from Honduras. Archuleta has four siblings.Archuleta's family moved to the Salt Lake Valley, to the city of Sandy, Utah, when Archuleta was six. He currently lives in Murray, Utah where he attended Murray High School.[7] Archuleta is a member of the Boy Scouts of America.

Archuleta started singing at age six, inspired by a Les Misérables video. "That musical is what started all of this", he said.He started performing publicly at age ten when he participated in the Utah Talent Competition singing "I Will Always Love You" by Dolly Parton; he received a standing ovation and won the Child Division.

Archuleta was inspired by watching both Tamyra Gray and Kelly Clarkson to "see what performing and really getting into a song was like" during the beginning weeks of the premiere season of American Idol.He later made his television debut, at eleven years old, singing "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going" on The Jenny Jones Show show for future Latino stars alongside season one finalist A.J. Gil.Through A.J. Gil he was able to meet and sing for Gray who had sung the song on American Idol as well as Clarkson (that year's winner) and Justin Guarini (the runner up).

Archuleta's mother is from Honduras, and much of the music he listened to as a child was Latin-influenced including watching his mom sing at events with her sisters.She also "was big on dancing" according to Archuleta, and would "make" him dance to traditional music with his older sister.He also listened to jazz music, he said, from his father's collection as well as gospel, pop, rock and "soulful music."n a later interview, he revealed that his father was a jazz musician. Archuleta also said he enjoys Broadway musicals

On his American Idol "Fast Facts" page, Archuleta cited his musical influences as Natalie Cole, Stevie Wonder, Kirk Franklin and Bryan Adams.When he listed his top pop music artists, he cited Natasha Bedingfield, Natalie Cole, Celine Dion, Mariah Carey, Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, Bryan Adams, Kirk Franklin, and Robbie Williams.Like Elliott Yamin and another singer he admires, John Mayer, Archuleta tries to infuse his pop selections with a soulful vibe.In a Seventeen interview he cites Sara Bareilles as a clever singer-songwriter he looks up to.


In 2003, at age twelve, Archuleta sang on several episodes of the television show Star Search. He ended up as the Junior Vocal Champion on Star Search 2. On one episode, he sang against then-11-year-old Alexandréa Lushington, who became a "top 20" semi-finalist on American Idol alongside Archuleta. Around the second year of being on Star Search he started focusing on the lyrics, "I didn't even pay attention to the lyrics when I was 12, 13".

Archuleta's competing on Star Search led to appearances on The Jenny Jones Show and CBS' The Early Show, and meeting the finalists from American Idol's first season, for whom he performed a spontaneous a cappella rendition of "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going" from Dreamgirls, and received enthusiastic praise from Season 1 winner Kelly Clarkson. The year after Star Search he found out he had partial vocal paralysis but declined risky surgery and has said he feels he is almost fully recovered. He limited his singing for specific occasions like Stadium of Fire, the Independence Day celebration at Brigham Young University Stadium.

Archuleta made initial attempts at songwriting and arranging music after his Star Search experience and has written at least three songs. His first singles in 2002 included "Dream Sky High" and "Don't Tell Me".