Carrie Underwood

Carrie Marie Underwood was born on March 10, 1983 in Muskogee Oklahoma to Stephen and Carole Underwood. She was raised, along with her 2 sisters, in Checotah, Oklahoma in a cattle farm belonging to her parents. Since early age, Carrie showed great passion for music. By the time she was 3 years old she had already sung at Church. In school, she showed great affinity to music, getting lead roles in school plays and placing in local talent shows. At the age of thirteen 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. When she got to high school she still sang at county fairs and other events, but decided to devote herself to studying. Underwood graduated from high school in 2001 as salutatorian and decided to enter College at Northeastern State University. For 2 years during the summer, she performed in Northeastern's Downtown Country Show in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. She also competed in numerous beauty pageants at the university and was selected as Miss NSU runner-up in 2004. She majored in journalism and mass communication.

In Carrie’s last year of college she went auditioning for the 2005’s American Idol season. Among her musical influences Underwood mentions pop and country and during the show she confesses that her favorite singer is Martina McBride. During the elimination process in American Idol she played the guitar but she also knows how to play piano and yodeling. Through the show she displayed beautiful performances that kept her in the competition (Carrie, along with Kelly Clarkson and Clay Aiken are the only contestants that never were in the “bottom three”), and eventually she ended up winning the competition against rocker Bo Bice (being the fourth singer to hold the title).

As part of her prize Carrie Underwood signed to Arista Records and, on June 14, 2005, she released her first single “Inside Your Heaven” which debuted number one on the Billboard hot 100 chart. She participated as a guest in several talk shows and appeared in several commercials. Carrie’s second single “Jesus, Take the Wheel” debuted at #39 on the Billboard Country Chart in its first week of airing. Her debut album “Some Hearts” was released on November 15, 2005 and it topped the Billboard Top Country Albums and gained the 2nd position on Billboard Top 200 Album chart at the same time. On May 26, 2005, U.S. Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma presented a resolution congratulating Carrie Underwood for winning American Idol and for being a positive role model. It resolved in declaring May 25 as Carrie Underwood Day in Oklahoma.