American Idol (season 7) American Idol (season 7) The seventh season of "American Idol", the annual reality show and singing competition, began on January 15, 2008 and concluded on May 21, 2008. Ryan Seacrest continued to host the show with Simon Cowell, Paula Abdul, and Randy Jackson returning as judges. David Cook was announced the winner of the competition on May 21, 2008, defeating runner-up David Archuleta by a margin of roughly 12 million votes out of over 97 million, which was at that time the highest recorded vote total ever recorded in the show's history. The split was 56% to 44%. The seventh
Judge Jackson Judge Jackson Judge J. Jackson (March 12, 1883, Montgomery County, Alabama - April 7, 1958, Ozark, Alabama) was an American sacred harp composer, songwriter, and educator. His 1934 publication "The Colored Sacred Harp" was later recognized by scholars such as Doris Dyen and "New Grove" writer Joe Dan Boyd as an important document of early twentieth-century shape note singing practice. Jackson was raised in a family of sharecroppers and obtained little formal education as a child. When he was sixteen years old, he left home and took work as a farmhand in Dale County, Alabama, where he settled and eventually