Tidbits 6/27

• TampaBay.com - This story, A Clean Start For Violinist Stewart Kitts, by John Fleming, Times Performing Arts Critic, is about an exceptional concertmaster violinist who lost everything to a crack cocaine habit. He is recovering from this habit, and the story says,

  He played in the pit for a Camelot tour. He was concertmaster for The Nutcracker at Ruth Eckerd Hall. He played for Smokey Robinson, Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme, Clay Aiken, Mannheim Steamroller and Bernadette Peters.

• newsjournal-online - The article, about weekend best bets says:

  Bandshell Live!, a Friday summer concert series, will feature the Beu Sisters in concert at the outdoor venue at 8 p.m. today.....They also opened a 2004 tour by "American Idol" stars Kelly Clarkson and Clay Aiken.

• WLKY.com - An article entitled 'American idol Comes to Louisville' says, "Thousands of Kelly Clarkson and Clay Aiken wannabes will descend on the River City when Fox's "American Idol" hosts auditions in Louisville next month."
• Phoenix New Times Music - American idol: Entertainment or Evil? by Serene Dominic has this to say about Clay and his fans:

  The "in your face" shelf life of most Idol grads is two years after the show. That's all we tolerated of Taylor Hicks, Ruben Studdard, Mario Vazquez, and Katherine McPhee even without the ability to vote them off with anything but our indifference....The big exceptions have been Clay Aiken, whose Claymates still won't listen to reason after five years...

  I'll quote the lyrics from Clay's song "Ashes" in response to the statement, "Claymates still won't listen to reason...":

  Looking back I can see
  How the voice of reason
  Kept reminding me
  I was never good enough somehow
  Try and remind me now

Tidbits 3/14

• A Thousand Days is making its rounds on ClearChannel owned radio stations. For example, you can stream the song live on KLEN-FM's website.
• The CB's renee4clay was featured on The Insider today in response to a question about who would be the best co-host for Kelly Ripa as Regis heads into surgery... "Clay Aiken would be my number one pick. Bring it on Clay", she said.
• Clay was also mentioned on yesterday (3/13)'s Today Show on NBC, says the CB's OneSingerGal:

  yesterday Today did a 2-3 minute tribute to Clive Davis. they mentioned non-idol stars like alicia, britney, justin etc. and discussed whitney and jennifer hudson with Clive.
  
  during a part of it they flashed pics of the recording stars associated with Clive, and mentioned his successes....first mentioned some non-Idols, then mentioned that he's signed Idol winners (flashed carrie) and finalists (flashed a great screencap of Clay from his ATD video....Clay's smiling broadly while singing and his eyes are 'smiling' too...i.e. partially closed....so cute !!! his name wasn't mentioned. ). also flashed pics of other Idols...
  

• There was a cute Clay mention this morning in Chicago. The CB's secretfriendmom updates us:

  I was listening to the Stan and Terry show which is 105.9 FM. They are actually a talk show. But they were talking about last nights American Idol Show and how bad it was, and then they got into talking about Clay and Ruben somehow. And the one DJ goes "Who's Clay Aiken?" and the other DJ goes, "You know the guy that beat Ruben" LOL and he was serious about it too...LOL There was some caller in afterwards that was supposed to have all the "info" on American Idol, so not sure if they set the DJ straight about Clay and Ruben or not. But it made my day...LOL
  

• From One Singer Gal @ The Clayboard:

  Yesterday (the TV show) Today did a 2-3 minute tribute to Clive Davis. they mentioned non-idol stars like alicia, Britney, justin etc. and discussed whitney and jennifer hudson with Clive.
  During a part of it they flashed pics of the recording stars associated with Clive, and mentioned his successes....first mentioned some non-Idols, then mentioned that he's signed Idol winners (flashed carrie) and finalists (flashed a great screencap of Clay from his ATD video....Clay's smiling broadly while singing and his eyes are 'smiling' too...i.e. partially closed....so cute !!! his name wasn't mentioned. ). also flashed pics of other Idols...

• Lycos 50 - Clay has moved up three places to #16 for the week ending March 10. Under his name, it says, "Claymates love him." They have that right! Clay has been in the Lycos top 50 for a total of 193 weeks, just 15 weeks shy of 4 years!
• FOX News -more on Mario Vasquez being sued over sexual harassment allegations... Vasquez has the same lawyer as Clay:

  Vazquez had been convinced by an attorney who had worked on extricating Clay Aiken from his "American Idol" management contract that, should he win, he would be stuck with a long deal that would be difficult to get out of later.

• Fayetteville Observer - as Regis Philbin heads into a bypass surgery, Kelly Ripa will find herself with many guest co-hosts... "As long as Clay Aiken is not sitting next to her, the scheduled line-up should complement the witty Ripa."
• Times Herald-Record: AI article ... "More to the point, every season seems to feature a nice, nonthreatening male figure (think Clay Aiken, Kevin Corvais and John Stevens), whose appeal to adolescent girls (and their mothers and fathers) can't be underestimated."
• MLive - cheering on AI6 finalist LaKisha Jones ... "The judges have loved her from the get-go -- even Simon, which is saying a LOT! She's got an amazing voice and presence, and a great chance at winning. And even if she doesn't win, she'll probably still be a star. Remember, Clay Aiken didn't win."
• Your Hub Denver - AI recap ... "Still, these are the growing weeks, the weeks that managed to make even Clay Aiken a star. You never know."
• Associated Content - fewer and fewer Americans tuning into idol and "often the losers of the show do better than the winners. For example, last summer Clay Aiken and Kelly Clarkson easily beat Taylor's album in record sales. Chris Daughtry, a loser to Taylor, is topping the charts."

• Nothing here yet.