Diana DeGarmo: Biography

• Overview
• Discography
• Biography
• Related Artists

• Katharine McPhee
• George Huff
• Tamyra Gray
• William Hung
• Fantasia
• John Stevens
• Ruben Studdard

• Kelly Clarkson

Genres:

Rock Music, Standards & Vocal Music, Traditional Pop Vocal Music

Decades Active:

2000's

Only sixteen and a junior in high school in Snellville, Georgia, Diana Degarmo was the youngest finalist of American Idol 2004, but you wouldn't have guessed it from her powerful, confident voice. Growing up a showbiz kid surely helped. Degarmo had been in Atlantabased productions of +Annie and +Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat at a young age and performed at the 1996 Summer Olympics as part of the CocaCola's "Olympic Kids". She later became a cast member of Cartoon Network's Cartoon Gang and got her first taste of televised talent shows when she became a finalist on NBC's America's Most Talented Kid. Being too young to audition for the first season of American Idol frustrated Degarmo to the point of boycotting it, put taking a peek midseason, the young hopeful became a massive Kelly Clarkson fan. She was still too young for season two, but studied it intensely, and became Miss Teen Georgia in the meantime. Prior engagements kept her from auditioning for season three during the shows stop in nearby Atlanta so Degarmo and family took a vacation to Hawaii to catch the next tryouts. She was in, and worked her way up to runnerup, losing to Fantasia Barrino. While Barrino sat on top the charts with "I Believe", Degarmo took the 2 slot with her single "Dreams", written by popular tunesmith Desmond Child who Degarmo had known since the age of 12 through a friend (according to the singer, Child had actually put a reference to her in his hit for Ricky Martin, "She Bangs", with the line "she switches sides like a Gemini"). A national tour with the season three Idol contestants followed before her debut album, Blue Skies, hit the shelves at the end of the 2004.

- David Jeffries, All Music Guide