Carly Smithson (née Hennessy) (born September 12, 1983) is an Irish singer, and a finalist on the seventh season of American Idol.Biography
Early Years
Carly Smithson was born in Dublin, Ireland to Luke Hennessy and Mary Murray. She grew up in Dublin. When she was 14, she moved to the United States. She currently lives in San Diego, California with her American husband.
Career
Smithson released an album for MCA Records called Ultimate High in 2001 as Carly Hennessy. The album did not find an audience, selling fewer than 400 copies in the first three months despite MCA Records spending over $2 million on the production and promotion of the album. The album was released on November 13th, 2001. Its commercial failure was documented in an article in The Wall Street Journal. Despite low record sales, she later won a Meteor Award in 2003 for Best Irish Female Singer.
Hennessy was signed to MCA Records during the same time period that Randy Jackson (an American Idol judge) was the senior vice president of A&R at MCA Records. Hennessy was at MCA in 1999. Randy started at MCA in 1998 and was there for 4 years.
Some of Hennessy's music was written by Danielle Brisebois, who has also written for Natasha Bedingfield and Kelly Clarkson. One of the songs by Brisebois – "Just Missed The Train", originally recorded by Norwegian artist Trine Rein – was featured on both Smithson's album and Clarkson's debut album Thankful.
After failing to move more than 400 copies (in the first three months) of an album after having 4 years of artistic development and $2 million spent on development and promotion, Hennessy auditioned for American Idol in Las Vegas during the show's fifth season; she made it to Hollywood but was disqualified purportedly because her visa had expired. She married a US citizen at some point after this.
Hennessy (now going by her married name of Carly Smithson) successfully auditioned again for Season 7 of American Idol and made the top 24. Shortly thereafter, articles appeared in the mainstream press pointing out connections that had been reported in various blogs for the previous month [11] [12]. Smithson acknowledged her previous record deal on the February 20, 2008 episode of American Idol, and stated that the record label 'imploded'. Smithson was actually dropped from the label one year prior [13] to the purchase of MCA Records by Geffen Records. In other interviews, she blamed the album's failure to gain traction on the September 11 terrorist attacks[14].
Smithson was declared safe on American Idol on March 26, 2008, and is now is part of the Top Nine Finalists.