Idol's Other Cook Lands Record Deal

E! Online

Canada

Idol's Other Cook Lands Record Deal

Mon., Jun. 30, 2008 12:20 PM PDT by Gina Serpe

FOX

American Idol's most proudly (or maybe just strategically) American finalist has landed herself a record deal.

Maybe she can celebrate with some apple pie.

The recently betrothed Kristy Lee Cook has inked a deal with 19 Recordings/Arista Nashville for a twang-heavy album debut, with her first single, "15 Minutes of Shame," already getting an Aug. 11 release date.

The as-yet unnamed album will be recorded, as with Davids Cook and Archuleta, on the road this summer during the Idols Live! tour. While no firm release date has been announced for the album, like the Davids', it will be due out this fall, presumably after David Cook's.

Kirsty Lee Cook is wasting no time taking a page out of past Idols' playbooks: Arista Nashville is also home to Carrie Underwood, and her album is being produced by Brett James, who cowrote Underwood's megahit "Jesus Take the Wheel."

(Hopefully Cool will fare better than Idol alums Taylor Hicks, Ruben Studdard, Katharine McPhee and Blake Lewis, all of whom have been dropped by their respective RCA-owned labels this year.)

Signing up with Arista Nashville also marks a return to Cook's roots, as the singer was signed to the label as a countrified teen but parted ways with the company before getting the chance to record anything.