Ashley Parker Angel (born August 1, 1981) is a United States-born singer and actor.
Early Years
Ashley Parker Angel was born Ashley Ward Parker, the only child of Darren and Paula Parker, and raised in the town of Redding, California. His grandparents are of German and Irish descent. Ashley was named after the fictional character Ashley Wilkes, his mother’s favorite character from Margaret Mitchell’s 1937 novel Gone with the Wind, which later became a classic film of the same title. When Ashley was three years old, his parents divorced. His mother later remarried, and Ashley was legally adopted by his stepfather, Ron Angel, who is of American Indian descent. He then legally assumed the name by which he is known, “Ashley Parker Angel” he has One Brother, Taylor and Two Sisters Annie and Emily. [1]
From a very early age, Ashley studied the piano, as his mother Paula was a successful piano teacher with many students of her own. He was by nature active and adventurous. In one incident, at the age of nine he inadvertently set fire to his elementary school’s football and soccer fields due to the explosion of a model rocket he had launched on school property; local police charged him with a misdemeanor. [2]
As an adolescent, he was hired in an open casting call by the California-based video game company Working Designs, who produced many cult-hit role-playing games that required extensive voice acting. Ashley went on to voice characters in many popular Sega and PlayStation video games, including the lead character Alex in the classic Lunar: The Silver Star.
During his teenage years, Ashley also worked the game help phone lines at Working Designs, and as a lifeguard at both a local water park and Whiskeytown Lake. He later worked at ShopKo, a regional chain. While there, with each transaction, he would sweet-talk customers into filling out the feedback card he included with their purchase and asked them to mention him if they felt he did a good job. This tactic resulted in his ascent to the position as top employee in the entire store chain based on customer feedback. Always drawn to performing, at 16 he signed with a small talent agency in his hometown and began searching for opportunities to work in entertainment.
Entertainment career
O-Town and Making the Band
In 2000 Ashley Parker Angel achieved fame on the hit ABC series Making the Band, which tracked the formation of a pop music group.[3] The MTV production (whose title contained a pun on “making”: Who would make the band that was being formed?) was the first reality show to be picked up by a major television network. Weekly, viewers saw Angel, after first being plucked from tens of thousands of other auditionees,[4] survive each stage of the selection process to become one of the “final five” members of the new vocal group O-Town.[3]
Making the Band was the brainchild of boy band manager Lou Pearlman, who had been responsible for the formation of groups such as The Backstreet Boys and ’N Sync[5] (the show’s concept and title have since been adopted by Puff Daddy).
Ratings were strong, and as a result O-Town quickly achieved success; by the end of the first season, the group had inked a record deal with music legend Clive Davis and become the debut act for Davis’ new label J Records.[6] The album O-Town, boosted by the weekly TV publicity, debuted at #5 on Billboard and went on to multi-platinum status.[7] “Liquid Dreams,” the album’s first release, crowned the SoundScan singles chart at #1, selling over 42,000 units in one week.[8] The group won the 2001 Teen Choice Award for Breakthrough Artist.
Because of O-Town, J Records made musical history as the first label in SoundScan history (1991 and on) to have its first single release debut at #1 on the sales charts. Also, O-Town is the first artist in SoundScan history to have its first single come in at #1, an achievement recorded in the 2002 Guinness Book of World Records.[9]
In late spring 2001, the second single, “All or Nothing,” and became the biggest hit of O-Town’s career. The song reached #1 on the U.S. top 40 chart and was nominated for numerous awards, including Song of the Year during the 2001 Radio Music Awards.[6]
The group toured internationally, and went on to be the first reality show cast to remain unchanged for a second and third season.[10] Near the end of the third season, viewers watched O-Town striving to take their careers to the next level, writing their own music, earning the respect of industry peers, and marketing themselves as more than a “boy band.” Unfortunately, by the time of the release of their second album, O2, the teen-pop genre had begun to fade, and they did not find the acceptance they sought. Despite moderate success, O2 got nowhere near the market impact of their first album. In November 2003 J Records dropped the band from the label.[11][unreliable source?]
Solo Music Career and There & Back (2004–2006)
In 2004, Ashley Parker Angel had secured a record deal with Blackground/Universal Records, and later that year MTV began filming There & Back, a reality series tracking his pursuit of solo stardom. The show documented Angel’s struggle to transcend his mostly teen idol image, showcasing him as a serious songwriter and musician who co-wrote every track of his album. The series was backlit by the relationship between him and his then-pregnant fiancée (the engagement has since been broken off) and the obstacles of early fatherhood, and also captured the drama and birth of his son Lyric.
In April 2006, Angel was selected to be a contestant on NBC’s Celebrity Cooking Showdown, produced by entertainment mogul/rapper Diddy; Angel placed second, even though he is seen severely lacerating his finger during one of the timed cooking challenges. Shortly thereafter, he competed in the Kelly Slater Celebrity Surf Invitational,in which he had another severe injury, this time a foot laceration.
In May 2006, his solo album Soundtrack to Your Life was released, debuting at #5 on Billboard and receiving many positive reviews. Billboard’s review called it “great melodic rock … falling somewhere between the earnest balladeering of the Goo Goo Dolls and the driving rock of the All American Rejects.” The first single release, “Let U Go,” was a hit; its video spent weeks at #1 on MTV’s TRL and the single had the third-highest-selling debut of 2006. In spring of that year, Angel toured throughout North America with Ashlee Simpson (the two had been linked romantically in the past).
Angel was featured as a character in the Clone High episode "Gate Expectiations". In the episode, he hosts a teen dance show which is set on the sunny beaches of Canada, where it's always "a balmy 32 degrees". Angel is described in the episode as being like "the Beatles and Jesus all rolled into one."
On Broadway
In January 2007, Ashley Parker Angel joined the eight-time Tony Award–winning musical Hairspray, playing the lead character’s love interest, teen heartthrob Link Larkin. The New York Post assessed Angel’s performance as “an absolute charmer.” Angel’s presence on Broadway also led the New York Times to do a feature on the singer/songwriter turned actor. The Hairspray producers asked Angel to extend his contract four times. In early 2008, Angel sustained a back injury onstage, forcing him to leave the show for a few months, but he returned to finish the last few weeks of his latest contract, giving the actor a successful run in the show for more than a year.
During his stay in New York, Angel performed at several other Broadway-related events, including Broadway in Bryant Park and Broadway on Broadway.
Acting
He is known in the early years as the voice of the main character Alex in the video game Lunar: The Silver Star and Lunar: Silver Star Story.
In June 2009, signed on for the role of Sam Lombardo in a new movie that will be a remake of Wild Things by Sony.[citation needed]
On June 20 Angel played pop singer Danny Starr in the "Danny Starr / Quinceañera" episode of the children's cartoon Handy Manny on the Disney Channel.[12]
Personal life
Angel was engaged to model Tiffany Lynn after a five year relationship. In June 2008 the couple broke up. They remain good friends and have a son, Lyric Lennon Parker-Angel.[13]
References
- ^ http://www.angelfire.com/pop/otownonline/bios/ashleybio.html
- ^ http://www.o-townfanpage.net/biographies/ashleybio.html
- ^ a b http://www.buddytv.com/articles/making-the-band/what-are-they-up-to-ashley-par-8589.aspx
- ^ http://www.broadway.com/Ashley-Parker-Angel/broadway_news/543934
- ^ http://www.answers.com/topic/lou-pearlman
- ^ a b http://www.bluecoupe.com/pop/otown.html
- ^ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O-Town
- ^ http://all4otown2.tripod.com/otown/id23.html
- ^ http://www.angelfire.com/pop2/hototownbabes/news.html
- ^ www.myspace.com/otownfans2007
- ^ www.lyricsfreak.com/o/o-town/biography.html
- ^ http://www.stitchkingdom.com/2009/06/09/handy-mannys-sensational-summer-saturdays-all-new-episodes-begin-june-20/
- ^ http://www.usmagazine.com/ashley-parker-angel-calls-off-engagement
External links
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O-Town |
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| Erik – Michael Estrada • Dan Miller • Ashley Parker Angel • Trevor Penick • Jacob Underwood |
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| Studio albums |
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| Singles |
"Liquid Dreams" • "All or Nothing" • "We Fit Together" • "Love Should Be a Crime" • "These Are The Days" • "I Showed Her"
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