KELLIE PICKLER MAKES HER FIRST APPEARANCE AT THE BUFFALO CHIP MONDAY, AUG. 4
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A couple of weeks prior to the release of her first CD, Small Town Girl, Kellie Pickler was still unpacking her belongings in new condominium in her new hometown, Nashville.
"I came across photos from when I went to audition for American Idol. I just started crying. I couldn't believe how things had changed in a year, and how unreal it seemed to be where I am."
Kellie will be playing Monday, Aug. 4 at the Legendary Buffalo Chip Campground along with Kid Rock for the annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally.
Sturgis Rally music fans will appreciate Kellie’s journey to where she is today. It is marked by her ability to beat the odds against her, dig deep and hold to her dreams.
Before making it to American Idol’s fifth season finals, signing her record deal and touring the country with American Idol’s Live Tour, and eventually becoming the second Idol finalist to play the Buffalo Chip in Sturgis, (Chris Daughtry played at the Chip during last year’s Sturgis Bike Rally) Kellie had triumphed over adversity. "There's a difference in running from your problems and overcoming them."
She was born June 28th 1986, in the tiny town of Albemarle, North Carolina. Her mother left her father, Clyde “Bo” Pickler, Jr. with a two year old baby Kellie. He had problems with drugs and alcohol and Kellie was living with her grandparents, Faye and Clyde Pickler, Sr.
Clyde, Sr. worked long hours as an electrician. Her arthritis-stricken grandmother was the only person Kellie counted on. “My Angel” immortalizes her on the CD, which she wrote with Aimee Mayo and Chris Lindsey.
Kellie spent much of her youth singing along with her favorite stars. Dolly Parton was among her favorites. Poverty was Dolly's adversity. Being a motherless child with a father who was in and out of prison was Kellie's.
"I've seen my whole family struggle — with money, with relationships, with alcohol, and I thought there must be a better way,” she said. “I wasn't sure how I would get out, but I knew I would."
Her grandmother died in her sophomore year. She would later say it was the hardest thing in her life to go through.
While living with her grandfather Clyde, she entered a local beauty pageant and won, paying her tuition to a community college. But she didn’t connect with the cosmetology classroom and switched to trying to become a paralegal.
Enter American Idol. She went to the auditions in Greensboro, North Carolina with her grandfather Ken. The rest is history. Millions of people, including Idol judge Simon Cowell, fell in love with Kellie. We know that the annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally crowd that goes to the Buffalo Chip annually will fall for her just as hard.
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