Can fame from reality TV launch a successful singing career? For such American Idol contestants as Clay Aiken and Kelly Clarkson, the answer is clearly "yes." But what about for the star of ABC's The Bachelor 4? Bob Guiney wants to find out.
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Bob, former lead singer of Lansing, Michigan band Fat Amy, has just released his first "solo" CD. Entitled 3 Sides, the CD is independently released and is primarily available through Amazon.com, where it currently rates in the top 400, although it won't ship until Oct. 7.
Although the Fat Amy band appears on the record, the future of the band ... and of the Fat Amy name ... is questionable. The former Fat Amy website has been taken down, and all attempts to hit it go directly to the Bob Guiney website. Perhaps that's because, despite the fact that the band was active from 1993 to 1999, was once signed to AWARE Records (also home of Hootie and the Blowfish and Better than Ezra) and released an album on MCA in 1997 (its second, following an independent release), its success never spread beyond the midstate region of Michigan.
In 2000, Fat Amy finally split up, with Bob heading off to the mortgage business, before finding fame as one of Trista Rehn's suitors on The Bachelorette. Old rock and roll singers never quit (as sexagenarians Paul McCartney and Mick Jagger keep proving), and so 32-year-old Bob is going to try, try again. But music is a cruel business, and succeeding without a major label was impossible in pre-Web days. Will the growth of Amazon.com remove that barrier to entry in the music business? We'll soon know, and we wish him luck.
We aren't sure if we have the same sympathy for Bob's upcoming book, entitled What a Difference a Year Makes: Facing Setbacks and Coming Out Ahead. In the book, Bob details his recovery from the depression that began when he found a Post-It note left by his then-wife telling him that she wanted a divorce. Frankly, we find it hard to believe that Bob wasn't much better off being away from someone so classy, but perhaps there's more of a story to tell than we know.