Carrie Underwood Biography:

One of the first country style American Idols, Carrie Underwood was raised in the small town of Checotah, OK, and started singing with her church choir at the early age of four. Right through her childhood, she performed at events for the Lion's Club and Old Settlers Day, and ultimately at festivals and state fairs. Along with increasing her singing talents, Carrie Underwood began to play guitar and piano. She graduated from high school as the class salutatorian and majored in mass media communications at Northeastern State University with an aspiration on a career in broadcast journalism, but continued her singing career all the way through her studies.

As a senior just a few credits shy of her diploma, Underwood heard about the auditions for the 2005 season of American Idol. She auditioned for the television series at the St. Louis, MO, auditions, and her childlike appeal and clean, beautiful singing voice ended up winning her not only a place among the 12 American Idol finalists, but the title of 2005's American Idol. 

Her debut single, "Inside Your Heaven", was released in the summer of 2005, and beside her appearing on the American Idols Live! tour, and being hired for endorsement deals with Hershey's and Skechers, she began recording her debut album in Nashville. "Some Hearts" was released later that year and instantly became a smash hit, selling over 400,000 records in its first two weeks and finally going triple platinum. The album's lead single, "Jesus, Take the Wheel," was also a huge success, topping Billboard's Hot Country Songs chart for six weeks.

Praise for the album and single bubbled  over into 2006, when "Some Hearts" was once again featured on Billboard's Top Ten after Underwood's appearance on the 2006 American Idol finale and "Jesus, Take the Wheel" won Single Record of the Year at the Academy of Country Music Awards where she also won Top Female Vocalist, a Dove Award from the Gospel Music Association, and Breakthrough Video and Best Female Video at the Country Music Television Awards, making her the only triple ever winner at the event. 

Despite her frenzied career as a country music sexy celebrity and super star, which included extending her "Some Hearts" tour through the fall of 2006, Carrie Underwood found the time and energy to finish her college degree and become a spokesperson for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) who named her 2005's World's Sexiest Vegetarian. 

"Before He Cheats" was released as Underwood's third single late in 2006, and became her third country number one album and her fourth number one hit song. In December, she won five Billboard Music Awards: Album of the Year, Top 200 Female Artist of the Year, Female Country Artist, New Country Artist, and Country Album of the Year.

Early in 2007, Underwood started development of her second album, while "Wasted" became the fourth single taken from "Some Hearts" album and she performed it on an episode of American Idol that April, and the following month, it hit number one on the "Hot Country Songs Chart". 

She returned to American Idol in April as part of the show's "Idol Gives Back" benefit episode and visited South Africa to recorded an acoustic cover of the Pretenders' "I'll Stand by You," which was released exclusively on iTunes. 

Underwood won three more awards at the 2007 Country Music Television Awards, Video of the Year, Female Video of the Year, and Video Director of the Year for the video "Before He Cheats." 

She also was awarded three 2007 American Country Music Awards in May, which included Album of the Year for "Some Hearts" and Top Female Vocalist. She made a third special guest appearance on American Idol for the sixth season finale, where she sang "I'll Stand by You" to a standing ovation. During the show, Clive Davis acknowledged Underwood's multi-platinum record sales -  Underwood was the first country artist to sell that many copies of a single album since LeAnn Rimes' "Blue" in 1996. 

Underwood also appeared on Brad Paisley's album "5th Gear", which was released in the summer of 2006. Also in 2008 Carrie Underwood became the latest member of the Grand Ole Opry. The vocalist joined the cast of the long running country music show with Garth Brooks directing her official induction and Vince Gill singing a duet with her.

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