American Idol and Singing Career
On October 30, 2002, the reality TV singing competition American Idol held auditions in Nashville, Tennessee for the show's second season. Locke successfully passed through to the next round, and in December was chosen to perform on the show. She finished third, behind winner Ruben Studdard and runnerup Clay Aiken. She has since been invited back to the show to perform twice (seasons 3 and 7).
Locke went on to sign a record deal with Curb Records on September 6, 2003. Her debut album, One Love, was released May 4, 2004. Debut single "8th World Wonder" reached the top half of the Billboard Hot 100 and was successful on other charts, and entered the UK charts. "Wrong" and "I Could" followed as singles.
Locke released her version of "Up on the House Top" in the autumn of 2005 and by the end of year, it had reached the top spot of the Adult Contemporary (A/C) charts. The following year, Locke's version of "Jingle Bells" was released and topped the same charts. A full Christmas album entitled Christmas — only available digitally — was released on November 6, 2007.
Locke's second album, Based on a True Story, was released on May 1, 2007. The album's original lead single, "Supawoman," co-written with her producers Damon Sharpe and Mark J. Feist, was released to radio on August 7, 2006. "Change," was released to radio on January 15, 2007. The album's next single was a cover of Freda Payne's "Band of Gold," which was released to radio on August 13, 2007, and became Locke's sixth solo A/C Top 10 hit. The album's third single,"Fall," co-written by Clay Mills and also recorded by country music artist Clay Walker, was released to radio in February 2008. All three singles from this album hit number one on the Billboard dance club chart.
After parting ways with Curb Records in 2009, Locke went on to be the first artist to sign a deal with Randy Jackson's Dream Merchant 21 record label and recorded the single "Strobelight", which was released April 6, 2010. as part of the "singles only" agreement about which Locke stated, "We live in a world where people go to iTunes and download the songs they want. "
In 2011, Locke issued a press release announcing her new entertainment company called I AM Entertainment. Her first independent release through her new company was her danced-themed EP album, "Four for the Floor", which was released on July 19, 2011. On November 1, 2011 Locke released a cover of Silver Bells which was accompanied by an I AM Entertainment produced music video. During the summer of 2011, fans chose via a Facebook voting campaign, which would be Locke's next single. The winning song was "Finally Free" which is slated to be released with a full remix package in 2012.
Read more about this topic: Kimberley Locke
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