Phillip Phillips raises more than $50,000 for COVID-19 relief with virtual concert – It wasn’t the biggest stage he’s ever played on, but Albany’s hometown music hero Phillip Phillips’s intimate, live-from-home streaming concert event on May 7 had a big impact, raising $55,555 to help support frontline medical heroes battling COVID-19 in southwest Georgia. The worldwide recording star and American Idol winner played for thousands of fans across the region and around the world. Phillips, an Albany, GA, native, is passionate about supporting all the frontline heroes who are working daily with patients and community members. Phillips won season 11 of American Idol in 2012, and his song “Home” has gone on to become the best-selling single in the show’s history. – WFXL.com
‘The Voice’ finalist Todd Tilghman Q&A: ‘I felt kind of an inner pull to try something new’ – For seven weeks, Todd Tilghman, 41, lead pastor of Cornerstone Church in Meridian, has tugged on the heartstrings of America with his genuine, soulful tone. Earlier this season on ‘The Voice’, Tilghman secured a spot on Blake Shelton’s team. Shelton took him under his wing and he has flourished ever since. Why did you make the choice to audition for ‘The Voice’? A: A lot went into it. I felt kind of an inner pull to try something new (even though The Voice was a real shot in the dark). And I had friends that encouraged me to do it. Lastly, my wife really insisted that I go through with the audition. – Read more at Clarion Ledger
Katharine McPhee Reflects on How Smash Changed Her Life Ahead of Reunion, Bombshell in Concert – With Bombshell in Concert and the Smash reunion one day away, Katharine McPhee is looking back on how the hit NBC series changed her life. The singer-actress, 36, tells PEOPLE that the NBC series — which ran for two seasons between 2012-2013 —”made so many of my dreams come true.” “So many of the things I wanted to accomplish I got to do in that one show,” McPhee says. “I wanted to be on Broadway, and though I hadn’t been on Broadway yet, I felt like I was part of the theater community.” “And then I ended up doing Broadway several years later,” she adds, referring to her stint in Waitress, which began in 2018 and ended when the show closed this past January. – Read more at People.com
Meghan Markle & Prince Harry’s Friendship w/ Katharine McPhee & David Foster – Katharine McPhee may have a childhood connection with Meghan Markle, but it looks like their husbands have forged an even closer bond! “My husband has a really, really beautiful relationship with Harry. They’re like, they’re so cute. They’re like father and son,” the “Smash” alum, who went to the same Catholic school as the Duchess of Sussex, told Access Hollywood’s Kit Hoover. Plus, Kat explained how the “Smash” cast reunion and “Bombshell in Concert” livestream came together – and discussed the possibility of a full-fledged “Smash” reboot! The #BombshellInConcert for coronavirus relief livestream with Renee Zellweger streams May 20 at 8 p.m. ET on People.com, PeopleTV and People’s social platforms.
David Archuleta talks post-‘Idol’ anxiety and learning to live with himself – As he spent the last few years working on an album about mental health, David Archuleta had no idea it would arrive at exactly the right time. “I was just writing about my own therapy sessions,” the 29-year-old singer said by phone recently from his home in Nashville. “A lot of that had to do with uncertainty, fear, having courage, feeling down, feeling lost, like, What do I do now? And now everyone is going through that.” Archuleta conceived the aptly titled Therapy Sessions, which comes out May 20, as a way to work through his own anxieties — both those that emerged after he finished second on American Idol in 2008, and those that were there the whole time. – Read more at TampaBay.com
‘American Idol’ Alum Gabby Barrett On Scoring One Of The Biggest Country Hits Of 2020: ‘It’s A Wonderful Feeling’ – It has now been almost two years since Gabby Barrett came in third place on the sixteenth season of American Idol, losing the competition to Caleb Lee Hutchinson and Maddie Poppe, who was crowned the champion of the first season since the show returned. Since then, both of those two artists have failed to make much of a commercial impact, while Barrett has landed one of the biggest country smashes of the year.Barrett’s breakout track “I Hope” has thus far lifted as high as No. 16 on the Hot 100 and it’s reached the No. 1 spot on Billboard’s Country Airplay, Country Streaming Songs and Country Digital Song Sales charts, though it’s stalled at No. 2 on the Hot Country Songs list. In nearly no time, “I Hope” has become a surprising blockbuster in the country field, and it has set Barrett up as a possible breakout star in the genre. – Read more at Forbes.com
