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 Blake Lewis |
Blake Lewis
Saturday, Nov 10
Blake Lewis was born in Redmond, Washington to Dallas and Dinah Lewis. Dinah is a former rocker who still sings and plays guitar. He is an only child and is of Welsh, German and Irish descent. He attended Kenmore Junior High and later Inglemoor High School in Kenmore, Washington. In high school, Lewis participated in many high school state competitions. He also took part in numerous musicals, as well as comedy and rap videos with his friends. In many of these videos, for instance, "The Chuck Norris Rap", "The Harry Potter Rap" and "The Snakes On a Plane Rap", he portrayed his alter ego, Jimmie Walker Blue, the character he introduced during the semi-final round of American Idol.
Lewis started beatboxing at seventeen. He picked up this talent purely by ear, listening to CDs of beatboxing, after he was inspired by Matthew Selby, a former member of the Los Angeles-based a cappella group M-Pact, of which fellow American Idol semi-finalist Rudy Cardenas was a member. Aside from singing and beatboxing, Lewis plays the guitar, keyboard, drums and has written many songs such as "She Loves the Way", "Emotional Waterfalls", "Dumpty Humpty" and "Jealousy". He describes himself as an improv musician and often uses devices such as loop pedals and the Kaoss Pad to layer beatboxing, instruments, vocals and effects to create a song live on stage.
Being a member of the a cappella group KickShaw for four years after graduating from high school in 1998, Lewis worked with the group on a 10-track album titled Put It In the Microphone but he quit the group in 2002 to become a solo musician going by the stage name BShorty, "doing drum and bass shows, and conscious hip hop shows, singer-songwriter stuff, and electronica and hip hop". He made connections with various musicians by performing regularly in many venues in Seattle such as Nectar Lounge in Fremont, SeaMonster Lounge, Lo-Fi Performance Gallery, Jet Deck in Everett (now in Mill Creek) and hosted shows like The Digital Lounge shows at ToST. Before Idol, he was working on a solo album with a number of tracks finished.
Lewis auditioned for Idol in Seattle—despite having never seen the show before—with "Crazy" by Seal. Introducing himself as the local beatboxing champion in the audition, Lewis beatboxed along with his teammates, including Chris Sligh, Rudy Cardenas and Tom Lowe, to "How Deep Is Your Love" by Bee Gees in the Hollywood's Week. The memorable performance received a standing ovation from the audience and Paula, who commented "that brought down the house". In an early episode of the United Kingdom edition of American Idol, Lewis recalled his first solo performance in the Hollywood's Week was "Papa Was a Rollin' Stone" by The Temptations. When later he sang it in front of the other finalists, Phil Stacey felt that it was the best performance he has seen from Lewis.
Lewis' songs from the American Idol have been on sale at the iTunes Store and the American Idol official website as Blake Lewis - EP (called a "bundle" on Idol official website) shortly after the finale of Idol, along with other songs that did not make the EP's cut that are being sold as individual singles. Figures from SoundScan which were posted on USA Today indicated that Lewis' "You Give Love a Bad Name" was "the biggest-selling download of the season", with 192,000 copies sold.
After the finale of Idol, Blake Lewis has made several appearances on television shows. He performed Maroon 5's "She Will Be Loved" on The Morning Show with Mike and Juliet (combined with a snippet of U2's "With or Without You"), The Today Show, Live with Regis and Kelly and The Early Show. In the episode of The View on June 14, 2007, he sang "Somewhere Only We Know" by Keane. Lewis had also appeared on Total Request Live, The Morning Show with Mike and Juliet with the winner of Idol, Jordin Sparks and Larry King Live with contestants who made into the top ten of American Idol. On July 4, 2007, Lewis performed "God Bless America" and "America the Beautiful" on Macy's Fourth of July Fireworks Spectacular with Sparks and Melinda Doolittle.
Lewis took part in the "American Idols LIVE! Tour 2007" from July 6 to September 23, 2007, along with other contestants in the top ten. He revealed on The View on June 14, 2007 that all the male contestants on the show would be playing musical instruments on the tour (for the first time ever), "doing like a folk band," and that he would bring along his loop pedals for his beatboxing. He performed "She Loves the Way" on the last show, becoming the first Idol who sang their pre-Idol original materials on the tour. He and Chris Richardson have "started working on a little documentary" on the tour and it will be published at their MySpace profiles.
Upon his record deal with Arista Records/19 Recordings which was announced officially on August 24, 2007, A.D.D. (Audio Day Dream), Lewis' "electro-funk-soul-pop" first studio album, is going to be released on December 4, 2007. In fact, the singer has been recording his album in the studio "for all night long" since June 18. "What You Got to Lose", a song co-written by Lewis and Chris Richardson, is rumored to be the first single from A.D.D..
