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Update:
His vocal stylings and bluesy
riffage on the American Idol stage
made Casey James a household
name. The Cool guitarist’s meteoric
rise to fame on the national stage had
locals riveted to their TV sets.
After his third-place finish during
the ninth season (2010) of the wildly
popular TV reality show, Casey left
American Idol, and was anything
but finished. The bluesy picker and
crooner toured with other Top 10
Idols on the American Idols LIVE!
tour. He signed with a major label.
“I am always really, really, blown
away with how my life has changed
in the last five years,” Casey said
recently. “It’s been a crazy whirlwind,
without a doubt.”
Casey has been headquartered
in Tennessee, working with some
well-known artists: Alan Jackson,
Sugarland, Taylor Swift, Randy
Owens [Alabama], Delbert McClinton
and others.
“He’s still in Nashville,” his
mother Debra said. “Last year he
played [on a collaborative album
with] the Doobie Brothers. Casey did
Jesus is Just Alright. That was quite
an honor for him. So he’s had some
really cool things happen for him in
the last year.”
Currently in the midst of a
career shift, Casey is excited about
his musical prospects, and even
some big- and small-screen acting
opportunities. No longer under
contract to Sony, he hopes to have
greater control over the creative
process.
“For me, you know, life is about
standing up for what you believe,
representing what you believe, having
joy … .” he said.
And the fame?
“Concerning fame, people will
say ‘that’s what you wanted, you
asked for it,’ and I’m [thinking],
‘actually, that’s not true,’” Casey said.
“It’s funny to say, but that [fame] is
simply a by-product of doing what
you love. If you’re a famous musician,
that just means that people know who
you are, which means that, hopefully,
out of the people who know who you
are that there will be a certain amount
of those people who actually like you,
will come and listen to you and buy
your music, and that you can affect
their lives.”
Casey hopes to travel home to
North Texas this month.
DECEMBER 2015 PA R K E R C O U N T Y T O D AY
come so far on the show, especially
considering the talent level of his
competition.
“For a while, everybody’s been
so amazing, so great,” he said. “You
just never know. The people that
are here are the reasons I’m here. If
they weren’t voting for me, I’d never
have made it this far. It’s a really big
honor.”
With so many local fans on hand,
James was asked about his time as a
youth in Cool.
“You can know everybody in
town and everybody in school,” he
said. “You can ride your bike to
school if you want to. I remember
thinking when I was a kid about
eventually moving to Fort Worth, the
big city. I love both ends. I like the
city and also love the country.”
Kyle Coker, Casey’s former P.E.
and health teacher at MHS said even
in high school, James had his future
planned.
“He was a good student,” Coker
said. “He was focused on what he
wanted to do. I tried to get him to
play football for me, but he had other
desires. He wanted to play guitar
and he wanted to be famous. He
always told me he would.”
James’ mom, besides supporting her son each week on TV, was,
pardon the pun, instrumental in his
decision to audition for the show.
He missed well-publicized tryouts
at Cowboy Stadium in Arlington and
wound up auditioning in Denver. “I
was in Florida playing whenever they
were here,” James said. “When I got
back, Denver was the very last one.
Mom said, ‘I’ll let you borrow my
truck and give you gas money for you
to drive up there and do it.’ She’d just
bought a brand new truck so I was
like, ‘All right.’”
Debra says she is glad Casey
made the show, but has had some
issues with critical remarks made by
the judges.
“There’ve been times when it was
like, ‘That hurt what they said,’” She
admitted. “It’s a mama thing,”
Do they harsh critiques upset the
up-and-coming star?
“I think it bothers them more than
it bothers me,” James said, motion-
ing to his family seated next t o him
in front of the TV cameras. “I’ve been
doing music for so long and it’s a
totally different situation. People in
the crowd would never come up to
you and say ‘Hey. That was a poor
choice of songs.’ You just try and
understand they’re just trying to make
you better.
Casey said the hardest part of
earning a spot among the estimated
100,000 that auditioned for the show,
was not the performing or even keeping the results a secret until the show
aired.
It was getting viewers to take him
seriously after judge Kara Dio Guardi
jokingly asked him to take his shirt
off in his audition, creating a stir each
time he and the judge interact.
“I had to do something that said I
can do more than take my shirt off,”
he said.
But viewers noticed more than a
little irony at his song choice during
Movie Song Week, when James
accompanied himself on the mandolin and sang “Mrs. Robinson,” a song
from the movie The Graduate which
details a relationship between a
young man and an older woman.
James denied any attempt to keep
the shirt-off storyline alive.
“No,” he said. “I love Simon and
Garfunkle and I love that song. It
came to me after I picked it. I was
like, ‘Oh….’”
James said once American Idol
and its accompanying summer tour
are done, he plans to return to Texas,
spend time with his two basset
hounds and make more music.
“I’d like to do a mixture of all
of it,” he said. “A mixture between
blues and rock and country. All the
things I love.”
Why not?
This is your life Casey James.
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