Taylor Hicks is the eponym

Eponym

An eponym is the name of a person or thing, whether real or fictitious, after which a particular place, tribe, era, discovery, or other item is named or thought to be named...

ous major label debut album by the American Idol

American Idol

American Idol, titled American Idol: The Search for a Superstar for the first season, is a reality television singing competition created by Simon Fuller and produced by FremantleMedia North America and 19 Entertainment...

fifth-season

American Idol (season 5)

The fifth season of American Idol began on January 17, 2006 and concluded on May 24, 2006. Randy Jackson, Paula Abdul and Simon Cowell returned to judge, and Ryan Seacrest returned to host. It is the most successful season to date ratings-wise and also with 18 contestants getting record deals -...

 winner of the same name

Taylor Hicks

Taylor Reuben Hicks is an American singer who achieved fame in 2006, when he won the fifth season of American Idol. Hicks got his start as a professional musician in his late teens and performed around the Southeastern United States for well over the span of a decade, during which he also released...

. The album was released on December 12, 2006 in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 by Arista Records

Arista Records

Arista was an American record label. It was a wholly owned subsidiary of Sony Music Entertainment and operated under the RCA Music Group. The label was founded in 1974 by Clive Davis, who formerly worked for CBS Records...

 in association with 19 Recordings Limited

19 Entertainment

19 Entertainment, based in Los Angeles, United States, is a creator and producer of entertainment properties based around the areas of Music and Television / Film, including American Idol in the United States, Pop Idol in the United Kingdom as well as versions of the Idol series in more than...

, nearly seven months after Hicks won the reality-talent competition in May. Hicks coined the phrase "modern whomp" to describe the album's sound—an amalgam of soul

Soul music

Soul music is a music genre originating in the United States combining elements of gospel music and rhythm and blues. According to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, soul is "music that arose out of the black experience in America through the transmutation of gospel and rhythm & blues into a form of...

, blues

Blues

Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...

, funk

Funk

Funk is a music genre that originated in the mid-late 1960s when African American musicians blended soul music, jazz and R&B into a rhythmic, danceable new form of music. Funk de-emphasizes melody and harmony and brings a strong rhythmic groove of electric bass and drums to the foreground...

, and Cajun

Cajun music

Cajun music, an emblematic music of Louisiana, is rooted in the ballads of the French-speaking Acadians of Canada. Cajun music is often mentioned in tandem with the Creole-based, Cajun-influenced zydeco form, both of Acadiana origin...

 influences with a contemporary twist. The first single from the album was the ballad

Ballad

A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads were particularly characteristic of British and Irish popular poetry and song from the later medieval period until the 19th century and used extensively across Europe and later the Americas, Australia and North Africa. Many...

 "Just to Feel That Way

Just to Feel That Way

"Just to Feel That Way" is the first single taken from Taylor Hicks' major label debut album Taylor Hicks, released by Arista Records. It was written by Lindy Robbins, Jess Cates, and Emanuel Kiriakou and produced by Matt Serletic. The song was officially released to radio on February 5, 2007,...

".

The album debuted at the number two spot on the U.S. Billboard 200 chart, selling 298,000 copies in its first week. Within one month of its release, Taylor Hicks was certified platinum

RIAA certification

In the United States, the Recording Industry Association of America awards certification based on the number of albums and singles sold through retail and other ancillary markets. Other countries have similar awards...

 by the Recording Industry Association of America

Recording Industry Association of America

The Recording Industry Association of America is a trade organization that represents the recording industry distributors in the United States...

 for shipping over one million copies. However, over a year later it had reached sales of only about 700,000 copies, making it the third lowest selling debut album by an American Idol winner, after Kris Allen

Kris Allen

Kristopher Neil "Kris" Allen is an American musician and singer-songwriter from Conway, Arkansas, and the winner of the eighth season of American Idol...

, Lee DeWyze

Lee DeWyze

Leon James "Lee" DeWyze, Jr. is an American singer-songwriter from Mount Prospect, Illinois, and the winner of the ninth season of American Idol. Prior to Idol, DeWyze had a solo career and formed the Lee DeWyze Band. He had also released two independent albums called So I'm Told in 2007 and...

 and Scotty McCreery

Scotty McCreery

Scott Cooke "Scotty" McCreery is an American country singer from Garner, North Carolina . He also won the tenth season of American Idol on May 25, 2011. His debut studio album, Clear as Day was released in October 2011...

 debut's. The album has sold 704,000 copies as of December 2010.

Album background

Recording for the album took six weeks, between October to November 2006, right after the culmination of the American Idols LIVE! Tour

American Idols LIVE! Tour 2006

American Idols Live! Tour 2006 was a summer concert tour in the United States featuring the top 10 contestants of the fifth season of American Idol, which aired in 2006. It was sponsored by Kellogg Pop-Tarts. The tour started on July 5 and ended on September 24 covering 60 dates, the biggest tour...

. The album, Hicks's first full-length endeavor, includes contributions from Bryan Adams

Bryan Adams

Bryan Adams, is a Canadian rock singer-songwriter, guitarist, bassist, producer, actor and photographer. Adams has won dozens of awards and nominations, including 20 Juno Awards among 56 nominations. He has also received 15 Grammy Award nominations including a win for Best Song Written...

, Diane Warren

Diane Warren

Diane Eve Warren , is a US songwriter. Her songs have received six Academy Award nominations, five Golden Globe nominations, including one win and seven Grammy Award nominations, including one win. She was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2001...

, and Rob Thomas

Rob Thomas (musician)

Robert Kelly "Rob" Thomas is an American rock recording artist and songwriter. He is the primary songwriter and lead singer of the band Matchbox Twenty. Thomas also records and performs as a solo artist...

, as well as a few of Hicks's originals which have appeared on his previous self-produced effort Under the Radar. Producer Matt Serletic

Matt Serletic

Matt Serletic is a record producer who has worked with several popular bands and artists for Atlantic Records, including Collective Soul, Matchbox Twenty, Blessid Union of Souls, Edwin McCain, Stacie Orrico, Taylor Hicks, Rob Thomas, and singer/songwriter Angie Aparo. Serletic will be working with...

 had only heard about Taylor Hicks for the first time when he was approached for the Idol winner's project.

Collaborations with other artists such as Robert Randolph and John Mayer

John Mayer (musician)

John Clayton Mayer is an American pop rock and blues rock musician, singer-songwriter, recording artist, and music producer. Born in Bridgeport, Connecticut and raised in Fairfield, Connecticut, he attended Berklee College of Music in Boston. He moved to Atlanta in 1997, where he refined his...

 were mentioned by Hicks in interviews, but failed to materialize due to scheduling problems and the goal to release the album before Christmas. Hicks had also been invited by the estate of Ray Charles

Ray Charles

Ray Charles Robinson , known by his shortened stage name Ray Charles, was an American musician. He was a pioneer in the genre of soul music during the 1950s by fusing rhythm and blues, gospel, and blues styles into his early recordings with Atlantic Records...

 to record at Charles's own historic 2107 West Washington Boulevard Studio (a.k.a. 2107-RPM) in Los Angeles

Los Ángeles

Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

, but those plans also had to be postponed until a future album. Hicks would have been the first person to record in the studio since Charles himself.

Fan blog Gray Charles, under contract with Hicks and his record company, gradually released first-hand details of the album, with Hicks providing weekly updates via audio blog. "The Runaround" was the first track premiered on Gray Charles on November 21, followed by "Dream Myself Awake" and "The Right Place", even before they were made available on Hicks's official website and MySpace

MySpace

Myspace is a social networking service owned by Specific Media LLC and pop star Justin Timberlake. Myspace launched in August 2003 and is headquartered in Beverly Hills, California. In August 2011, Myspace had 33.1 million unique U.S. visitors....

 page. The full album was made available for preview on the VH1

VH1

VH1 or Vh1 is an American cable television network based in New York City. Launched on January 1, 1985 in the old space of Turner Broadcasting's short-lived Cable Music Channel, the original purpose of the channel was to build on the success of MTV by playing music videos, but targeting a slightly...

 website on December 5.

"The Runaround" was originally intended to be the first single released from the album, and Hicks performed the song on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and The Martha Stewart Show

Martha (TV series)

Martha, also known as The Martha Stewart Show, is an American, weekday one-hour talk show hosted by Martha Stewart. Previously airing in first-run syndication, the show began exclusively airing on cable network Hallmark Channel since September 13, 2010.-History:The program originally debuted on...

in the run-up to the album's release. Instead, "Just to Feel That Way" was announced as the first "official" single after nearly two months. Hicks admitted that fan

Fan (person)

A Fan, sometimes also called aficionado or supporter, is a person with a liking and enthusiasm for something, such as a band or a sports team. Fans of a particular thing or person constitute its fanbase or fandom...

 reaction to the album contributed to the decision. His second single release was "Heaven Knows" The album's singles, "Just to Feel That Way" and "Heaven Knows" peaked at #20 and #19 respectively on Billboard's

Billboard (magazine)

Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...

 Hot Adult Contemporary Tracks

Hot Adult Contemporary Tracks

The Adult Contemporary chart is a weekly chart published in Billboard magazine that lists the most popular songs on adult contemporary and "lite-pop" radio stations in the United States...

 chart.

Track listing

Chart performance

Chart (2006)	Peak position
U.S. Billboard 200 Billboard 200 The Billboard 200 is a ranking of the 200 highest-selling music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists...	2
Canada Top 100	43