‘American Idol’ Winner Lee DeWyze Announces New Folk Album ‘Ghost Stories’
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Season 9 American Idol winner Lee DeWyze is set to release his folk album Ghost Stories on August 13. Since winning the show in 2010 over Crystal Bowersox, DeWyze has really been able to transition into the folk genre with his raspy voice. He finally announced a long-awaited tour around the U.S. this summer. It is set to kick off the day after the album is released.
‘American Idol’ Winner Lee DeWyze Announces New Album After Finding Spotify Success
After winning American Idol, DeWyze signed with RCA Records and released his first album Live It Up in 2010. He parted from the label the following year. DeWyze returned to his folk/rock roots and released Frames under Vanguard Records in 2013. His 2014 hit “Blackbird Song” was used in an episode of The Walking Dead and an episode of Suits in 2017. “Blackbird Song” now has over 12.1 million streams on Spotify, making it DeWyze’s most successful song to date.
DeWyze’s single “Again” was featured on the show Elementary in 2016 and “The Breakdown” was featured on the show Shameless in 2018. Two more albums followed Frames, but DeWyze is really trying to hone into the sound that he has been perfecting for all of these years after American Idol. Ghost Stories is looking to follow his 2018 album Paranoia with topped the iTunes Alternative charts.
At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, DeWyze was one of the many artists that had to postpone their tours. He announced a virtual concert series in March 2021. In April, DeWyze’s song “Horizon” from the Motion Picture The Secret: Dare to Dream was officially released. All of this had led up to his biggest announcement of all, his Ghost Stories Tour. The tour will kick off in August in Utah and carry through late September in Arizona. Tickets are on sale now.
DeWyze Has One Huge Celebrity Fan in His Corner
In the comments section of the Ghost Stories album announcement, singer Rita Wilson commented “Yes!!!!” It’s not every day that a country superstar who also happens to be Tom Hanks’s wife comments on an American Idol alums post. Their musical connection to each other is actually pretty cool.
Wilson had the idea to collaborate for “Where’s My Country Song?” when she got a message from DeWyze’s wife Jonna Walsh. DeWyze and Wilson posed for a selfie together in 2019. He called her “one of the best around” and encouraged his fans to check out her album Halfway To Home.
“Apparently, Lee’s wife Jonna (Walsh) had heard my Halfway to Home and she suggested that he reach out to me to write together,” Wilson said. “She thought that Lee and I would find common ground, and she was right.”
DeWyze and Wilson wrote the song together and released it on May 8, 2020. They had gotten together before the pandemic to write the song in Los Angeles. Wilson pitched her idea to DeWyze about “writing about the women who are the real women.” Once he began strumming the melody of the song, she knew they had the perfect tone for the tune.
Hanks even tweeted the song to support his wife and prove that he is still undefeated as the nicest guy in Hollywood. Wilson has since made her way onto The Masked Singer as a guest judge for Season 5. It is clear that she will always one of the biggest supporters of DeWyze who is arguably the most underrated American Idol winner to date. With just 14,900 Instagram followers, could Ghost Stories finally be the album that earns DeWyze the credit he deserves?
