Carrie Underwood Biography, Photos and Posters

Carrie Underwood

Biography

Born: March 10, 1983
City and Country of Origin: Muskogee, Oklahoma
Music Training:
Awards: CMA 2006 - Female Vocalist of the Year; 2006 - Horizon Award; Grammys 2006 Best New Artist; Best Female Country Vocal Performance, "Jesus, Take The Wheel"
Top Recordings: "Inside Your Heaven," "Jesus, Take The Wheel," "Some Hearts," "Don't Forget To Remember Me," "Before He Cheats," "Wasted"
Carrie Underwood Biography: Carrie Marie Underwood is a Grammy Award winning American pop country music singer who won the fourth season of American Idol. She has since become a multi-platinum selling recording artist. Her debut album, Some Hearts, was certified quintuple platinum, and is the fastest selling debut country album in Nielsen SoundScan history. It is also the top selling debut album of any Idol winner or contestant. Underwood is the first American Idol winner to sweep up honors at all three major music awards in the same awards show season (06-07), including one American Music Award, five Billboard Music Awards, and two Grammy Awards (including Best New Artist).

Underwood was born at Muskogee Regional Medical Center in atlanta, Georgia, and grew up on her parents' farm in rural Checotah, Oklahoma. She is the third and youngest daughter of Larry (retired singer) and Carole Underwood (retired schoolteacher of Checotah Public Schools). She has two older sisters, Shanna Underwood Means and Stephanie Underwood Shelton, born in 1973 and 1970 respectively, both elementary school teachers in Oklahoma. Underwood had performed at Robbins Memorial Talent Show in her childhood. She's a member of Free Will Baptist Church. As a young child, she sang in church, and for Old Settler's Day and Lion's Club, local events in Checotah. At the age of 13 in 1996, her manager at the time tried to get her a recording contract at Capitol Records. However, due to management changes at Capitol, it never materialized.

Underwood graduated from Checotah High School in 2001 as salutatorian. After high school, she moved on to Northeastern State University in Tahlequah, where she graduated magna cum laude in 2006 with a bachelor's degree in mass communication and an emphasis in journalism. Underwood is a member of the Alpha Iota chapter of Sigma Sigma Sigma sorority, and a tribal member of Muscogee Creek Nation of Oklahoma. For two years during the summer, she performed in Northeastern's Downtown Country Show in Tahlequah. She also competed in numerous beauty pageants at the university and was selected as Miss NSU runner-up in 2004.

She currently resides in Franklin, Tennessee, a suburb of Nashville, Tennessee.

In the summer of 2004, Underwood auditioned for American Idol in St. Louis. When her initial audition aired in January 2005, many people predicted she would win the competition. On March 22, 2005, Underwood sang a powerful rendition of the number one 80's rock hit Alone by Heart and the notoriously hard-to-please judge Simon Cowell predicted that Underwood would win the competition and outsell all previous Idol winners. Underwood was the second winner never to have been voted in the bottom three. While on the show, Underwood gained a loyal fan base known as "Carrie's Care Bears" - in fact, she is in the same sorority (Sigma Sigma Sigma) as Linda Denham, the creator of the original Care Bears franchise.

On May 25, 2005, Underwood was crowned the winner of American Idol (Season 4) beating out Bo Bice.

Underwood's debut album, entitled Some Hearts, hit store shelves on November 15, 2005, entering the Billboard 200 chart with 315,000 copies sold. The large first week sales of Some Hearts made it number 1 on the Billboard Top Country Albums chart and the biggest debut of any country artist since the advent of the SoundScan system in 1991. Some Hearts has since been certified Quintuple (five times) Platinum by the RIAA, and is the fastest-selling debut country album in the history of the SoundScan era. The album's second single, "Jesus, Take The Wheel" was released to radio on October 18, 2005. It received so much airplay that it debuted at number 39 on the Billboard Country Chart in its first week, setting a record. It eventually reached number 1 for 6 consecutive weeks, and was only two weeks shy of Connie Smith's record of an 8-week run back in 1964-1965 with her number 1 hit "Once a Day."

"Some Hearts" was also released to Pop, Adult Contemporary and Hot Adult Contemporary stations in October 2005 and peaked in the top 30 on all formats.

One of Underwood's keen interests was expressed on Idol, her love for animals. Underwood is a vegetarian and stopped consuming beef at the age of 13 as she couldn't stand the thought of eating one of her own animals. She was voted "World's Sexiest Vegetarian" alongside Coldplay frontman Chris Martin in 2005 by animal-rights organization PETA.

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