Caleb Johnson
It’s a Wednesday night in May and the final five contestants stand in the swirl of neon lights on “American Idol’s” glitzy stage.
Each is hoping for that shot at stardom and a record deal, a chance to leave humble roots in small towns, most of the final batch of performers being from the from the South and having worked jobs like waiting tables, playing in bars, clerking at grocery stores and farming.
The fans in Hollywood scream as popular host Ryan Seacrest, megawatt smile in place, jaunts onto the stage, introducing judges Jennifer Lopez, Keith Urban and Harry Connick Jr. Among the four finalists competing for a record contract and a chance at lasting fame is a young man from Asheville, N.C., Caleb Johnson, 23, who has risen to Hollywood stardom.
“It’s been an amazing ride. We’re all a supportive family,” he said of the “Idol” finalists. “It’s a tough thing being an entertainer. But as long as you love it, you find peace with it.”
Though always a performer, Caleb’s love for singing is relatively new—he had never belted out a note until his junior year at Erwin High School.
“A buddy of mine had asked me to sing in his talent show,” Caleb said about his first singing experience, belting out a song by Credence Clearwater Revivial. “Everyone freaked out and said, ‘He can really sing’—the first line out of my mouth and the audience erupted. It was then I knew this is what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.”
Caleb’s parents, Tamra and David Johnson, were just as surprised as the rest of the talent show audience when their then 17-year-old son took a bass guitar and pressed his lips to a microphone.
“I remember going and sitting in the audience and the principal sitting next to me,” said David Johnson, a former football player and coach. “When Caleb came out and he started singing, everybody started going crazy.”
“Did you know your son could sing?” the principal at Erwin asked David.
“No,” David said. “I didn’t even know he could play a bass guitar.”
Tamra had never known her son to sing at home, not even in the shower. “I was really shocked,” she said.
At the end of the night, the principal looked at the Johnsons, “eye to eye,” as David recalls, and made a prediction: “Your son’s going to be on TV one day.”
Fans have come to know Caleb for what he’s brought to “American Idol” each week—his goofy humor and the uncanny ability to rock out to music’s heavy-hitting best—so it comes as little surprise that he grew up a rather rascally kid whose passion for life began as soon as he started walking.
Caleb’s mother, Tamra, who works as a CPA, said he used to get into trouble in elementary school for talking too much and had trouble keeping his hands to himself.
“I’d get notes home from the school,” she said. “He always had a very active imagination. He loved books, and it would be very dramatic the way he’d read.”
Caleb loved dinosaurs, and entertained himself using towels for capes. When Caleb was 18 months old, his father, David, who works for his county’s parks and recreation department, taught him to sing all the words to the “Star Spangled Banner,” and, as a piano and guitar player, may well be the source of Caleb’s talent. Tamra’s grandfather also was musical and a member of the Parker Brothers band in the 1930s.
However, David’s first dream was to groom his son to be a football player.
“I was a college football coach until about two years ago,” he said. “He’d go to a lot of my practices and was a big kid. As a parent, you want them to fall into your footsteps.”
Caleb had other notions. He played a little baseball, took up track and tennis, and joined the drama club and chorus. He also did mission work and some volunteering at his church, Calvary Baptist.
After the infamous high school talent show, Caleb found an ad on Craigslist. A band in the nearby town of Maggie Valley was seeking a lead singer. His father was apprehensive, but drove his son to the audition. The band, Rock Bottom, signed him on immediately. A year later he became a member of Elijah Hooker, playing gigs across the area.
But a freak car accident fractured Caleb’s pelvis. As he lay in the hospital recovering, he turned the television to that season’s “American Idol” finale and knew what he wanted to do next. A few months later, he and his mother flew to Austin, Texas, for him to audition in one of the show’s cattle call-style events in which thousands perform in front of producers, not the celebrity judges.
He was awarded one of the show’s passes to move on and perform in Hollywood, but he was cut in the final rounds of audition, having stopped singing in the middle of his song, “Superstition” by Stevie Wonder.
Disappointed but undaunted, he tried out again the following year, making it to the top 40, Tamra said. That year he forgot the lyrics, a fatal mistake many unseasoned performers have made. Caleb took a year off to play gigs and record a CD with Elijah Hooker, then one day out of the blue, Caleb proposed auditioning for “Idol” again.
His father was supportive.
“You’ve been doing this a couple years now, and it might take you 15 years to get to where you want to be, or a year to do the Idol thing again,” his father, David, remembers telling him. “When you get a little bit older, you may want to try this again. You never know until you try.”
So he did, and the old cliché that the third time’s a charm proved true. He auditioned in Atlanta last fall and has been been a fan-, judge-, and media-favorite since, delivering powerhouse rock performances.
The adventure has been the stuff of which dreams are made—a room at the legendary Sunset Marquis, where the Beatles, Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones have all snagged a suite or two; meeting Bono, Grace Potter, and various movie stars; and getting his own star-quality recognition.
“It’s kind of a surreal experience,” Caleb said. “People who you look up to know who you are. It’s an incredible thing. I’m on the right path.”
Over the past seasons of the show, singers who either win or make the top ten, are invited on the Idol’s Summer Tour. The show has produced such stars as Kelly Clarkson (the first Idol), Carrie Underwood, Ruben Studdard, David Cook, Scotty McCreery, Phillip Phillips, Candice Glover, Chris Daughtry, Bo Bice, Fantasia, Clay Aiken, and Adam Lambert. Jennifer Hudson, who came in 7th during her time in 2004, went on to win both an Oscar and a Grammy.
Tamra used one of Caleb’s favorite words—surreal—to describe watching her son’s rise to fame.
“It’s an overwhelming sense of pride and excitement,” she said. “I’m just really excited for his future and hoping a door will open.”
But sudden fame hasn’t changed the adventurous son Tamra and David raised.
“What I see is the growth and the way he handles himself onstage,” said David, who has spent months traveling around several states, putting up flyers and banners to support his son. He’s even gotten truck drivers to post the photos that say, “Vote for Caleb” on their rigs.
“It’s incredible the impact you make on others’ lives,” Caleb said, of his experiences on the show. “It’s inspired me and made me feel empowered. It’s uncanny to see how it affects people.”
(Caleb’s final “American Idol” standing was yet to be determined as of publication. To check in on where he is now, visit facebook.com/IdolCalebJohnson or americanidol.com/contestants/caleb-johnson.)