Carly Smithson

Carly Smithson (née Hennessy) (born September 12, 1983) is a singer, originally from Ireland but now living in San Diego, who is as of March 6, 2008 a finalist on the seventh season of American Idol.

Smithson released an album for MCA Records called Ultimate High in 2001 as Carly Hennessy, before taking her husband's last name. The album failed to find an audience, selling only 378 copies despite MCA Records spending over $2 million on the production and promotion of the album. The album was released on November 13th, 2001. Its commercial failure was documented in an article in The Wall Street Journal. Despite low record sales, she later won a Meteor Award in 2003 for Best Irish Female Singer.

Carly was signed to MCA Records during the same time period that Randy Jackson (an American Idol judge) was the senior vice president of A&R at MCA Records. Carly was at MCA in 1999. Randy started at MCA in 1998 and was there for 4 years. Jackson was part of the team responsible for signing Smithson-Hennessy to MCA.

Some of Carly's music was written by Danielle Brisebois, who has also written for Clay Aiken and Kelly Clarkson. One of the songs by Brisebois – "Just Missed The Train", originally recorded by Norwegian artist Trine Rein – was featured on both Smithson's album and Clarkson's 2003 album Thankful.

Before season seven, she auditioned in Las Vegas during the show's fifth season; she made it to Hollywood but was disqualified because her visa had expired.