Clay Aiken

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Clay Aiken's Bio: Clay Aiken has never sounded more at home than he does singing the lushly arranged classics on his fifth studio album Tried and True - the international pop phenomenon's first album for Decca Records. The bulk of the album - which showcases Aiken's powerful tenor voice and considerable interpretive gifts - is made up of songs from the '50s and '60s that Aiken grew up listening to as a child in Raleigh, North Carolina.

"My birth father was a musician and my mother sang in a band when I was a little kid," Aiken says. "There was always music playing in the house. A lot of the songs on Tried and True, like 'Unchained Melody,' 'Suspicious Minds,' 'It's Only Make Believe,' and 'Crying,' are songs my mother used to sing. If folks do think I sound at home on this album, it's probably because singing these songs came very naturally for me. I never took sheet music or lyrics into the vocal booth. I knew them so well that I didn't need to."

For Aiken, Tried and True (so named because he feels the songs have stood the test of time) was about getting back to himself after a career performing more pop-oriented material. "There are a lot of elements to this album that are about me returning to what I'm comfortable with," Aiken says. "I've often joked with friends that I feel like I was born at the wrong time because the person I am and the songs I like to sing are all from earlier eras. To me, older songs are more melodically appealing and beautiful. So doing this album was kind of an opportunity to just be myself. I'm kind of an old soul, so singing gorgeous orchestral arrangements backed by a big band fits me really well."

Aiken's delight in the material comes through not only in his vocal delivery but in the way he connects to the emotional undercurrents running through each of these melodic ballads. With the thoughtful help of executive producer Dave Novik (Decca's Senior Vice President of A&R), as well as arrangers Chris Walden, Jesse Vargas, and Ben Cohn, the classic standards on Tried and True are respectfully updated and refreshed, but still retain the spirit in which they were written and sung by various legendary artists through the years. "I told Dave Novik that I wanted to do something that paid tribute to the Johnny Mathis, Perry Como, and Andy Williams type of sound, because those artists sang really emotional stuff and did it beautifully," Aiken says. "I mean, have you ever heard Johnny Mathis sing 'Misty'? What is he doing with his voice! He's like some kind of amazing freak of nature. It's just incredible." … Read more