Ashley Parker Angel
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Ashley Parker Angel |
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Ashley Parker Angel (born August 1, 1981) is a singer and actor. He was a member of American boy-band O-Town, and has had success as a solo artist and also as a performer on Broadway.
Career
O-Town
Ashley was first launched to fame in the year 2000 on the hit ABC series "Making The Band" which chronicled the formation of a pop super-group. The now Diddy adopted franchere was originally the brain child of boyband guru Lou Pearlman, responsible for the formation of groups like The Backstreet Boys and *Nsync. "Making The Band" was the first reality show to be picked up by a major television network paving the way for countless reality and talent shows since. Plucked from tens of thousands of contestants, Ashley's talent and undeniable heartthrob appeal made him an obvious choice for the show's five part vocal group OTOWN. OTOWN experienced incredible success in just a short period of time, selling over 5.6 million albums, touring internationally and going on to be the first reality show cast with a 2nd and 3rd season. O-Town is most widely recognized for their number one smash single, "All or Nothing".
Solo work
After O-Town disbanded, Ashley successfully made the transition into a solo artist, securing a major label deal on Blackground/Universal Records. At the same time Ashley was approached by MTV Networks and pitched a spin-off idea based on the success of "Making the Band".
The series called There and Back helped him shed his former boy-band image and highlighted his talent as a serious musician and songwriter. Capitalizing on the show's success, Ashley's first single "Let U Go" became an instant hit as the highest seling debut on Billboard's Hot 100 in 2006.
Combined with a successful summer tour with Ashlee Simpson and a number one video on TRL, it was clearly evident that Ashley Parker Angel was not just that kid from O-Town. Rumors are that Ashley is currently songwriting as much as he can while on Broadway and hopes to release new music soon. In Summer 2008, Ashley released a new song via Myspace called "Can You Handle It".
Broadway
Following Ashley's summer tour, Ashley was offered the role of Link Larkin in the eight time Tony Award winning, "Hairspray" on Broadway. Ashley has received such an overwhelming response from both longtime fans and theatergoers alike, that he has been asked to extend his contract four times since his initial debut in the show. According to Angel, following his run in Hairspray he looks forward to using the experience to embark into the world of film and television. His immediate success as a leading man on Broadway is evidence that it is the correct move for Angel.
Other works
Ashley Parker Angel appeared in the 1999 direct-to-video movie Longshot along with the other members of O-Town as well as many other teen celebrities of the time.
He provided the voice of Alex in the Lunar series of video games on the Sega CD platform, the voice of the character Slick in the video game Popful Mail (also Sega CD), and made an appearance in the Sega Saturn game Magic Knight Rayearth as the voice of Ferio.
Parker had appearances in episodes of the MTV series Clone High and My Own. He also competed on the television program Celebrity Cooking Showdown, making the finals but not winning, partly because he lacerated his hand with a knife during the challenge.
Discography
With O-Town
Solo
Albums
Singles
| Year | Title | Chart positions | Album | Certification | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US Hot 100 | US Top 40 | Hot Digital | ||||
| 2006 | "Let U Go" | 12 | 23 | 4 | Soundtrack to Your Life | Gold |
| "Soundtrack to Your Life" | 58 | - | 32 | - | ||
| "Where Did You Go?" | - | - | - | - | ||
| 2008 | "Can You Handle It" | - | - | - | - | |
External links
- Articles needing cleanup from October 2008
- Cleanup tagged articles without a reason field from October 2008
- Wikipedia pages needing cleanup from October 2008
- Articles lacking sources from September 2007
- 1981 births
- Living people
- O-Town members
- Participants in American reality television series
- People from Redding, California