American Idol returns with an all-new episode Sunday, March 23. Auditions continue as judges Luke Bryan, Lionel Richie, and Carrie Underwood try to suss out the next generation of musical talent. With a powerful original song called “Colorado Gray” and a backstory that’ll break your heart and put it back together again, one contestant, Sam Sparks, is already generating plenty of buzz. Here are three things you need to know about the season 23 golden ticket holder.
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1. Music Helped Him Cope with a Life-Altering Tragedy
Two years before his American Idol audition, Sam Sparks got behind the wheel on a rainy day and set off for a shop roughly two miles from his small-town Arkansas home. Sadly, a vehicle failure led to Sparks losing control of the car, which left the road and flew 35 yards through the air before hitting a parked car head-on.
“I looked down, and I couldn’t move my legs,” Sparks said in a sneak peek of his American Idol audition. “I immediately knew that my back was broken.”
Now paralyzed from the waist down, the 26-year-old has adjusted to life in a wheelchair. While he was recovering, someone gifted Sparks a guitar. Unwilling to disturb the other patients, he practiced daily in the hospital’s parking garage.
“It absolutely got me through what I was going through,” Sparks told the judges.
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2. He’s Always Loved “Going Fast and Being Loud”
In his tiny hometown of Dardanelle, Arkansas (population 4,517) drag racing is a cherished pastime. That’s probably why Sparks has nursed a passion for cars “as long as I can remember.”
“I was 15 when I started building my first car,” he said in his American Idol audition video. “Oh, I was so proud of that thing.”
Sparks says his two favorite things are “going fast and being loud.” Since his car crash, “I still get to do those things today. I just do it a little different.”
3. Sam Sparks Didn’t Actually Sign Up For ‘American Idol’
Sparks’ life-changing car crash shattered everyone around him, including his best friend Malick. “Hearing my best friend scream like that, that scream kind of sits with me at all times,” Malick said in Sparks’ American Idol audition video. “I knew at that moment that his life was going to be different. But I knew that music was going to get him through whatever he was going to get through.”
That’s likely why Malick signed his friend up for American Idol. He even accompanied Sparks to Nashville for the audition, where judge Lionel Richie insisted on bringing him onstage.
“Now, Sam, you hang on to Malik,” said the “All Night Long” crooner. “‘Cause every one of us needs a friend just like that.”
Featured image courtesy of Sam Sparks via Instagram
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