A little road music, revisited...

There's a cute encounter posted on the official boards today--one hometown fan ran into Bucky Monday afternoon, and she posts about it (in much fun detail!) here.

And while Bucky and the rest of the idols are on their way to their respective airports, the news about his surprise appearance with Sawyer Brown (and the enjoyably cryptic contract hints from the insider at the Fox boards) are causing a bit of buzz in the general Idolsphere, if these posts at TWoP and the Season 5 board are any indication. (Edited--that innocent thread about Bucky at the Country Fever Fest was deleted by the mods at the Fox boards, and we haven't a clue why...) We aren't the only ones really looking forward to that Bucky Covington debut CD, after all--not by a long shot.

Since the question's already out of the bag, so to speak...when will we know for sure what's going on with Bucky's recording career, and how soon can we expect that CD? If the standard rules for Idol finalists were in effect, the wait would be frustratingly long. From that 2004 Washington Post article we linked to several weeks ago, concerning the singers' options post-Idol:

They must sign extensive contracts with 19 Entertainment, the powerhouse British management and production company that originated the show. After a season's 12 finalists -- winnowed by judges and audience members from an initial field of perhaps 10,000 aspirants -- return from a lengthy postseason arena tour, 19 Entertainment (and "Idol"-affiliated labels, such as RCA) decide whether to pick up a contestant's option; only winners are guaranteed recording contracts. If the label passes, and it usually does, contestants are free to look for a deal elsewhere. But once they sign with another label, record an album and do the requisite pre-release promotional work, a momentum-killing amount of time may have passed.

What's interesting about this season is that the "standard rules" seem to be anything but standard. Paris Bennett has already announced her plans to record a Christmas CD; Taylor Hicks and Elliott Yamin are both rumored to be considering semi-alternative management (an option that wasn't even on the table this soon after the finale for Idol finalists in previous years, if I'm not mistaken); and Chris Daughtry was mentioned in passing as "recently signed" in a Sony-related Yahoo Business article. Perhaps some solid news about Bucky's brightening future could come to us before the tour ends?

All we can do is hope so--and in the meantime, we can enjoy the occasional intriguing messages from our roundly-arboreal friend at the Fox boards. And be sure you keep that space in your CD rack open...it's looking more and more like we'll have that Bucky CD for the road after all, and maybe sooner than we could have imagined.

Let's wrap this up with some graphic sweetness--the talented Kathy from Team Covington has created a beautiful new Covington Brothers wallpaper from a photo of their recent Firehouse performance. Hop over there now, download and enjoy...

See you soon!