Before we 'met'

Though we have learned more about Taylor's musical past since AI ended, I'm only including things I knew durring AI Season Five:

Taylor Hicks never had a singing lesson or a music lesson in his life, but is singing, dancing and playing the harmonica from an early age.

*Taylor drops out of college as soon as someone starts to pay him to play music. (In Rick and Bubba interview, his dad sounds like he is STILL upset about that.)

*Taylor works as a musician for 10 years struggling to ‘make it.’*He works festivals, weddings, bars and clubs.*He moves to Nashville for a while, but finds the market saturated and moves back to Alabama.

*Over the years he makes 2 cds that don’t do anything but are very good!

*His brother, Sean, encourages Taylor to try out for American Idol.

*His dad tells him he might as well just buy a lotto ticket instead of American Idol because his chances would be better.

*Taylor has never seen an episode of American Idol.

*Because of Hurricane Katrina, a flight of Taylor’s from New Orleans is cancelled and the airline gives Taylor a free ticket to anywhere in the country. Taylor uses the free ticket to get to Las Vegas to try out for American Idol. Later, Taylor says if he had not gotten that free ticket, he would not have been on Idol.

*Taylor is 28 at the Las Vegas auditions so he makes it in just at the cut-off age. He is only a few months from being too old for the competition.

*Taylor really liked the shirt in the pic above. A lot. (Photographic evidence available upon request.)