EJay Day

Earl Day Jr., known professionally as EJay Day,[1][2] originally hails from Lawrenceville, Georgia.[1][3][4][5] The youngest of four children,[2] his parents, Earl Sr. and Gilda, were employed by Corporate Environments at the time of Day's American Idol appearance.[6] Day took to singing in church at an early age.[2][7] He would later credit this experience with helping to develop his vocal abilities, saying that it taught him how to "sing parts and harmonies".[7] Before long, Day began performing in larger venues.[2] He signed with a talent agency known as Hot Shot Kids/Teens in Atlanta, which also represented Tamyra Gray and Diana DeGarmo, two other local artists who would also go on to become American Idol finalists.[7] At the age of twelve, Day sang the National Anthem before an Atlanta Braves game.[2] According to the bio on Day's (now-defunct) official website, he had found a large audience by the age of fifteen, performing for several notable officials and celebrity figures, such as President George Bush, former U.S. Ambassador Andrew Young. Rev. Jesse Jackson, Hank Aaron, Andre Agassi, and Muhammad Ali. Day purportedly performed for Ali numerous times, "at book-signing events and other receptions [held in Ali's] honor."[4]

In 1999, Day graduated from Central Gwinnett High School.[8] The same year, he shared songwriting credit for the track "Pure Love" on Raven-Symoné's album Undeniable.[4][9][10] At the time of his American Idol audition, Day was employed as a singer and dancer at Six Flags Over Georgia.[11][12][13] He also found work singing on a cruise liner[6][14] and was cast in multiple musicals.[14] Prior to appearing on the Fox reality series, Day participated in the second season of Popstars: USA,[2][8] placing in the Top 20.[2]

Day auditioned for American Idol in Atlanta, Georgia,[14][15] singing "Get Here" by Oleta Adams.[16] He was twenty years old at the time.[1][2][8] Although initially cut from the competition prior to the voting rounds, he advanced into the semi-finals, after another contestant, Delano Cagnolatti, was disqualified. Anyone over the age of twenty-four was not allowed to audition that season,[lower-alpha 1] and it was discovered that Cagnolatti, then twenty-nine, had lied in an attempt to escape the cut-off.[8][12][18][19]

Placed into Group 3 for the Top 30 semi-finals, Day performed "I'll Be", by Edwin McCain.[8][16][19][20] Although he had less time to prepare than the other contestants,[2] he received positive remarks from the judges and was voted through to the top ten.[2][16][21] For the first round of the finals, each contestant was instructed to sing a Motown song. Day selected "My Girl", by The Temptations.[11][13][19] Although he was once again praised by all three judges (and even called best of the night up to that point by Randy Jackson),[11][lower-alpha 2] Day received the lowest number of votes that week and became the first finalist ever eliminated from American Idol.[13][20][22][23][24][25][26][lower-alpha 3]

Day's performances with American Idol have caused a divergence of opinions among music critics. Following Day's elimination from the competition, Jessica Shaw of Entertainment Weekly concurred with the contestant's low placement, criticizing his fashion – "EJay could have been voted off simply for wearing that 'Please, sir, I want some more' Oliver Twist cap" – and his song choice that week – "Of all the Motown songs, did he have to pick one that’s been covered to death?"[13] Day's recorded rendition of "I'll Be", on the American Idol: Greatest Moments album, earned a better reaction however, prompting another writer with the publication, Jon Caramanica, to declare that Day "got robbed".[27] Dave Wedge of The Boston Herald also singled out "I'll Be" as a highlight on the album, writing that Day "show[s] personality along with some polish".[28] Wedge considered Day's track superior to those included on the album of that season's runner-up contestant, Justin Guarini.[28] In a review for The Herald News, Chuck Campbell was largely critical of the album and wrote that Day "bumbles along" on the track.[29] He nonetheless considered Day's vocals to be emotionally well-conveyed.[29]

Ranking the sixteen most notable Georgians to ever appear on American Idol, Rodney Ho of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution placed Day in the twelfth spot.[lower-alpha 4] He wrote that Day's live rendition of "I'll Be", performed during the semi-finals, had "some tonal issues", but was mostly in key.[20] In a 2013 retrospective feature by PopCrush, Cristin Maher wrote that Day displayed "sweet" and "smooth" vocals while on the series.[19] Boston Herald writer Amy Amatangelo gained the impression that Day should have gone on further in the competition, after seeing his group medley performance in the first-season finale.[30] A year after Day's run on American Idol, Simon Cowell reflected, "[EJay Day] could outsing Justin Guarini any day of the week, but he had just an average feel about him."[31]

Day's involvement with the 2002 American Idols LIVE! tour also elicited varied reactions. Ho concluded that Day gave a better performance on this tour than some of the higher ranked contestants,[20] calling Day's voice "the best of guys'".[32] Day's performance in this setting was considered "barely audible" by Amatangelo, but she nonetheless complimented it for being "energetic".[33] Writing for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and the Chicago Sun-Times respectively, Kevin C. Johnson and Jim Derogatis were considerably less positive in their reviews.[34][35] Johnson criticized the "harshly cut wig and thick makeup" that Day wore on the tour, while describing Day's performance in the set as "style over substance".[34] Derogatis called Day's performance "completely forgettable". Offering up his own ranking of the ten finalists, Derogatis readjusted several positions, but still placed Day in last.[35]

Day performing on the cruise ship MS Veendam in 2012 (with an unidentified guitar player on his left)

Less than a month after American Idol's first season finale, Day reunited with the top thirty contestants to perform in the two-hour American Idol in Las Vegas TV special. Day then participated through October and November in the 2002 American Idols LIVE! tour, along with his fellow top ten finalists.[4][6][14][19][36] Each of this tour's thirty shows was opened by Day singing Janet Jackson's "Black Cat".[4][37][38] To usher in 2003, Day performed in Pasadena, California's New Year's Day Rose Parade.[6][19] Paired with eighth place finalist AJ Gil on a float for Give Kids the World,[39][40] the two sang "Calling All Angels",[39] a song which had been specifically written for the charity organization.[41] The band OTown also participated in this float.[40] Day and Gil would subsequently perform "Calling All Angels" at an Orlando, Florida fundraising gala in June[41][42] and release this duet as a single through Give Kids the World.[39][41][43] Later that year, Day participated in further fundraising events, such as the Hollywood Knights Season Wrap Party in Los Angeles[40][44][45][lower-alpha 5] and NSYNC's Challenge for the Children event in Miami.[40][49] Throughout the Spring, Day participated in Coca-Cola's Behind the Scenes With American Idol promotional tour, in which he and a selection of other finalists from the first two seasons of the series performed in shopping malls owned by the Simon Property Group.[50][51][52][53][54][55][56] Around this time, Day also performed the National Anthem for a variety of professional Georgia sports teams, such as the Atlanta Hawks and the Atlanta Thrashers.[57][58] In November, Day performed along with Edwin McCain and American Idol second season finalist Vanessa Olivarez in a tree lighting ceremony at the World of Coca-Cola.[59]

The MS Veendam, a cruise ship on which Day has often performed

Shortly after appearing on American Idol, Day returned to performing on cruise ships.[5][40][54] Between 2005 and 2006, it was reported that he had been performing on two different ships operated by Royal Caribbean – Voyager of the Seas and Explorer of the Seas.[54] By 2011, Day had established a musical act performing on Holland America's MS Veendam.[60] Day has also been cast in several low-profile theatrical productions.[5] It has been suggested by PopCrush, that Day may have continued performing for Muhammad Ali,[19] extending his purported pre-Idol history with the iconic boxer.[4]

The American Idol: Greatest Moments album, released October 1, 2002, features a recorded version of Day singing Edwin McCain's "I'll Be".[14][61] The album reached No. 4 on the Billboard 200 chart.[14] Although Day has never released a debut album of his own, he remarked during his American Idol run that he would likely title such an album Fire or Eye Candy.[3][62] Following his elimination from the series, Day elaborated to Billboard that his dream would be to collaborate with The Neptunes on music similar to that of Britney Spears.[12] Five months later, People magazine reported that Day was recording "demo tapes",[63] and the following April, Day told Orlando Weekly that he had completed a song called "Come Into My World".[55] In July 2003, "Come Into My World" was released as a single. According to Day's official website, the song found airplay on two radio stations in Atlanta.[64] Currently, "Come Into My World" can be heard on Day's StarNow account, along with another original song, "My Lovin's Too Good Too Wait".[65] Day's MySpace page included two additional tracks, "Just Let Go" and "One Good Beat", which can no longer be heard due to MySpace accidentally deleting millions of songs.[66][67]

In September 2006, it was reported by Gwinnett Daily Post that Day had recorded a full album. Evoking Day's single from three years earlier, this album would have been titled Come into My World. Although unreleased, the album was said to contain original songs, mixing R&B with pop. The publication was told by Day that "many of the songs were inspired by his experiences performing on cruise ships."[5] Day's official website noted that the album's songs were written by Day himself, Charlie Morgan, and Georgi Ivanov.[4]

The LGBT publication Baltimore OUTloud reported in 2012 that dance music artists known as the Perry Twins were writing and producing new music for Day, although nothing more was said about Day in this article.[68] Two years later, on September 4, 2014, Day uploaded a song titled "Need You in My Life" to his YouTube channel. In the description, Day called this the first song on which he understood the "meaning [of] songwriting" and noted that it was inspired by a relationship in which he and the other person had to part ways, in spite of their strong feelings for one another.[69] "Time was not on our side. It's usually like that for me...[but maybe], just maybe we would meet again", Day wrote about the song.[69]

• EJay Day at IMDb
• EJay Rocks – Official Website (Archived: 2003 – 2004)
• EJay Online – Official Website (Archived: 2008 – 2011)
• American Idol profile on EJay Day