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Danny Gokey may have finished third on the recently completed season eight of “American Idol.” He was voted off of the show in the next-to-last episode, leaving the flamboyant Adam Lambert and Kris Allen to battle it out for the title on the season finale.
So it might seem as if Gokey was never really a central part of the conversation about who would win this past season.
But Gokey he suspects he was much closer to winning it all than many people assume. While most observers (not to mention the “Idol” judges) expected Lambert — with his big voice, flashy Goth-ish clothes and makeup and strong stage presence — to win easily, Gokey thinks his main competition was Allen, whose smoother, mainstream pop sound and boy-next-door image carried him to the upset win over Lambert.
Had he beaten out Allen to reach the finals, Gokey thinks he might well be wearing the “Idol” crown.
“When I got voted off, I think me and Kris kind of tended to draw from the same crowd,” Gokey said in a late-June phone interview. “So if I wouldn’t have gotten voted off, and he got voted off, I think our fan bases probably would have voted for each other (over Lambert).”
Still, it’s not as if the ending has been all bad for Gokey. He has a featured slot on the current “American Idols Live” tour, which stops at Wachovia Arena, singing a four-song solo set — which is generous compared to how much stage time everyone but Lambert and Allen receive.
And in some ways, Gokey seems to be getting nearly as much attention as Allen. Even though Allen was the champion, there’s little doubt that most eyes are focused on Lambert in the aftermath of season eight.
It was Lambert, after all, who landed on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine in the wake of the season finale (with an article in which he confirmed, after plenty of speculation, that he is gay). There also seems to be considerably more anticipation for Lambert’s first CD, which it appears will include producer RedOne (who produced Lady Ga Ga’s hits “Poker Face” and “Love Game”) in a featured role.
Gokey said he has no problems with the attention Lambert is receiving.
“I don’t mind that at all,” he said. “That’s like his thing. He’s stands out. He’s the type of guy who stood out in the auditions. So with like his persona and how he portrayed himself, that usually will grab the media’s attention a lot. So I don’t mind it at all, and I’m actually happy for him.”
In fact, Gokey thinks that Lambert and his decidedly edgy persona will be a good thing for the future of “American Idol.”
“I think Adam opened the doors for this show,” he said. “There are going to be a lot of new people coming out, a lot of different people, people who never would have thought to try out, are going to come out. I think this (next) year of ‘Idol’ is going to be a very interesting year of ‘Idol,’ and I have to give it to Adam Lambert for bringing that unique style to the show.”
The truth is, Gokey is feeling very good about where his future in music stands, considering what he went through only a few weeks before his “American Idol” odyssey began.
In February of 2008, Gokey told his wife, Sophia, that he wanted to audition for “American Idol” — an announcement that pleased his wife, who was a major fan of the show. Ironically, Gokey himself never saw the show until season seven because he was working nights.
“I got a DVR, and I was recording it,” Gokey said. “I watched season seven of ‘American Idol,’ and that got me to want to try out. It was February of 2008 when I told my wife, I said ‘Baby, I’m going to try out.’ She said ‘You’ve got to do it.’ She was a big fan.”
Sadly, Sophia Gokey never got to see her husband even audition for “American Idol.” In July of 2008, she died of complications from what was a third surgery for a congenital heart condition. The “American Idol” audition was only four weeks away when Gokey lost his wife. Despite his grief, Gokey decided to go ahead with the audition, traveling from his home in Milwaukee to the audition site in Kansas City with his friend, Jamar Rogers, who also tried out but missed the cut.
Gokey, who had been singing on the area’s Christian music circuit for years, said he was driven to audition because of one thought.
“I can sum it up with one word, and the word is hope,” Gokey said. “I didn’t want to live after she passed, but (the desire) to find meaning in music, which I’ve always wanted to, brought me a new sense of hope. When you have hope, you kind of have the faith to go after something. Since I had that hope of like maybe this will work, I kind of just believed and I blocked it (the grief) out. And look where it got me. You know, in my darkest hour, music is what brought me hope on ‘American Idol.’ Now I’m living in my dream. I’m fulfilling a dream. Even though it was a rough road to get to this dream, it made me have a passion for this life again.”
There was also a practical reason why Gokey realized auditioning was a now-or-never-proposition for him.
“I was too old to try out the next year,” he said. “I’m 29 now, and the cutoff is 28. So I was faced with that when my wife passed because I honestly would have waited another year. Most definitely I would have waited another year to try out, but I couldn’t. And you know, actually I’m glad I did it this way. I don’t regret it now … I think I would have been in a worse position trying to like work a full-time job and trying to pull my life back together. The whole ‘American Idol’ experience kind of, it burned a new light for me.”
Now it’s almost a year later. Gokey has notched his third-place finish and has found a new purpose through starting a charitable foundation in honor of his wife, called Sophia’s Heart. And like most top finishers on “Idol,” he appears to be in line to sign a record deal soon.
“I talked to the president of 19 Records today, and there are a few record labels that want to sit down with me and talk,” Gokey said. “So we’re just going to get that set up.”
And of course, there’s also the “American Idols Live” tour, which had Gokey excited. He said with the pressure of competition no longer there, the atmosphere among his fellow “Idol” contestants on the tour is better than it was during season eight of the show.
“I feel like it’s going to be great,” Gokey said of the tour. “I think it’s going to be a lot stronger energy than we had on the show, because on the show we’ve only got two minutes. So with our own sets, we can show more of ourselves as opposed to a two-minute song. And we get to kind of feed into the crowd more because we don’t have to be conscious of judges and we don’t have to be conscious of cameras.”
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American Idols Live, Wed., Sept. 9, 7 p.m., Wachovia Arena (255 Highland Park Blvd., Wilkes-Barre Twp.). Tickets: $39.50, box office, Ticketmaster outlets. Info: 570.693.4100.