Early life

Haley Elizabeth Reinhart was born in Wheeling, Illinois, on September 9, 1990, to Patti Miller-Reinhart and Harry Reinhart, both of whom are musicians and native Chicagoans from the north side and south side, respectively. She has one sister, Angela, who is five years younger than her. Angela is a singer-songwriter and musician, as well, and she primarily performs indie folk music. Reinhart is of German, Irish, and Italian descent. Around the age of three, her parents would hold her up on stage and have her sing the chorus or vocal harmonies for "Brown Eyed Girl." She began singing seriously when she was 7 or 8 years old, performing with her parents’ band, Midnight, which covers rock songs from the 1960s and 1970s. Reinhart's mother was also the lead singer for a band called The Company She Keeps before she joined Midnight in 1977. When she was nine years old, Reinhart sang LeAnn Rimes's "Blue" on a big stage at a tattoo convention, and she was met with "overwhelming" support from the audience. She has been writing poetry since she was eight years old and has competed in many poetry slam competitions throughout her life. She also has a passion for improv and has been active in plays, musicals, and skit performances since childhood. Reinhart began writing songs in Middle School, and she explains that "when I give myself the time to sit down, and reflect, and feel, and let things come out, I find that it’s very easy for me to do." She had several hundred compositions saved on her cell phone before it broke, losing all of the material. Reinhart had planned on auditioning for American Idol ever since middle school, where she received an award at the end of the year for student "Most Likely to Be on American Idol".

She attended Mark Twain Elementary School, O.W. Holmes Middle School, and Wheeling High School. While in high school, Reinhart was first introduced to Jazz music after becoming a part of the school's vocal group called Midnight Blues. She eventually performed at the 2009 Montreux Jazz Festival and Umbria Jazz Festival with her high school's jazz band, of which she was the first ever permanent singer. She reunited with the jazz band in 2015 when the director invited her to sing in their show at The McCormick Place in downtown Chicago for the Midwest Clinic. After graduating from high school in 2009, Reinhart attended Harper College in Palatine, Illinois from 2009 to 2010, where she studied jazz as a full-time student. She performed with the college's Jazz Ensemble and Jazz Lab. These events during her late education allowed her to gain experience singing Cole Porter standards in such historic places as Switzerland and Italy. Reinhart also fronted a band during college under such tentative names as Haley's Comet and Reinhart & the Rastatutes; the band covered classic rock songs from Led Zeppelin and other famous artists of the time. She worked as a lifeguard at Wheeling Aquatic Center, a community pool in her neighborhood, for four years prior to auditioning for American Idol.

Idol Career

2009-2011: American Idol Overview

Reinhart first auditioned for the ninth season of American Idol, in Chicago, but did not advance to the Hollywood round. However, she returned the following year for the tenth season of Idol in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and advanced after singing The Beatles's "Oh! Darling". Although she auditioned with two songs, the first being Alicia Keys's "Fallin'," only her second song choice of "Oh! Darling" was aired on television.

She successfully progressed through the first Hollywood solo round after singing "Breathless" by Corinne Bailey Rae. In the group round of Hollywood week, her group mates included fellow finalist Paul McDonald, and she advanced even after forgetting some of the lyrics to "Carry on Wayward Son." Later in the second solo round, she performed "God Bless the Child", impressing the judges and making a comeback from her weaker group performance. In the Vegas Round, she grouped up with fellow finalists Naima Adedapo and Jacob Lusk to perform The Beatles's "The Long and Winding Road," which earned all three contestants a spot among the final 48 competitors. Reinhart was selected by the judges to be a semi-finalist after her final Hollywood solo performance, and she was later voted into the Top 12 finalists after singing "Fallin'" by Alicia Keys during the live semi-final show. Although she was among the bottom three singers on four occasions during the finals, she advanced through to the penultimate week of the competition after giving memorable performances of "House of the Rising Sun" and "I (Who Have Nothing)" during Top 5 week and Top 4 week, respectively. She was eliminated in third place behind Scotty McCreery and Lauren Alaina, who were announced as having progressed to the finale. She sang "Bennie and the Jets" for her farewell encore performance. Although often harshly criticized by the judges for her song choice and stage presence, she was considered a fan-favorite and a dark horse in the competition.

She is the only season 10 contestant who has over one million views on six of her YouTube performance videos: her renditions of Adele's "Rolling in the Deep," Elton John's "Bennie and the Jets," Ben E. King's "I (Who Have Nothing)," and her version of "House of the Rising Sun." Every video reached the milestone in less than a month. Her performance of "Rolling in the Deep" reached over 2.4 million views before it was taken down, and now, after several removals and re-uploads, the most popular version has reached nearly half a milion views. Her interpretation of "House of the Rising Sun" reached 1.5 million views as of November 20, 2011, was taken down, and currently holds 3,000,000 views. Her version of "I Who Have Nothing" reached 2 million views as of January 30, 2012, and her rendition of "Bennie and the Jets" reached 2 million views on April 2, 2012. All of these videos have been taken down several times and replaced with alternate versions. Her performance of "God Bless the Child" hit 1,000,000 views in March 2014. The video of her audition performance of "Oh! Darling" reached 1,000,000 views in March of 2016.

Reinhart was also the only contestant in season 10 who received three standing ovations from the judges in consecutive weeks: "The House of the Rising Sun," "I (Who Have Nothing)," and Led Zeppelin's "What Is and What Should Never Be." Her performance of "Moanin'" with fellow contestant Casey Abrams during the Top 8 results show also received a standing ovation from the judges and was considered one of the best duets and performances of the season. During the American Idol Finale, Reinhart sang "Steppin' Out with My Baby" alongside jazz singer Tony Bennett which also received a standing ovation.

In preparation for the January 6, 2016 premiere of American Idol's Farewell Season, E! Online ranked Reinhart's cover of "Bennie and the Jets" as the series' 14th best performance, TVLine ranked the performance as the 6th best in Idol history, and BuzzFeed ranked it 1st on their list of the "17 Most Iconic American Idol Performances of All Time." Reinhart's performance of "The House of the Rising Sun" was included at number 9 on LA Times's list of the "10 Most Memorable Idol Performances of All-Time." In addition, Reinhart appeared twice on Billboard's list of "American Idol's Top 100 Live Performances." She was listed at number 68 for her interpretation of "Bennie and the Jets" and peaked on the list at number 18 for her cover of "The House of the Rising Sun." Additionally, Reinhart was ranked 26 out of 168 on Vulture.com's comprehensive list ranking all of the American Idol finalists from worst to best based on over-all performance within the scope of their respective seasons. She was praised for her "wildly uneven" performances and her fearlessness in confronting the judges about their critiques, factors which contributed to her being "one of the more convincing rocker-chicks to grace the Idol stage."

Musician and celebrity support

She received notable musician and celebrity support from Robert Plant, Lady Gaga, Jimmy Page, Kelly Clarkson, Adam Lambert, Tom Hanks, Blake Lewis, Melinda Doolittle, Kris Allen, Ellen DeGeneres, and others, who picked Reinhart as their favorite Season 10 contestant. Gaga cleared Reinhart's performance of "You and I" during Top 5 week, while Plant and Page contacted Idol producers and offered Reinhart the opportunity to sing a Led Zeppelin song for Top 3 week.

Performances/results

Episode	Theme	Song choice	Original artist	Order #	Result
Audition	Auditioner's Choice	"Fallin'"	Alicia Keys	N/A	Advanced
		"Oh! Darling"	The Beatles
Hollywood Round,1	First Solo	"Breathless"	Corinne Bailey Rae	N/A	Advanced
Hollywood Round, Part 2	Group Performance	"Carry On Wayward Son"	Kansas	N/A	Advanced
Hollywood Round, Part 3	Second Solo	"God Bless the Child"	Billie Holiday	N/A	Advanced
Las Vegas Round	Songs of The Beatles Group Performance	"The Long and Winding Road"	The Beatles	N/A	Advanced
Hollywood Round Final	Final Solo	"Baby It's You"	The Shirelles	N/A	Advanced
Top 24 (12 Women)	Personal Choice	"Fallin'"	Alicia Keys	9	Advanced
Top 13	Your Personal Idol	"Blue"	LeAnn Rimes	7	Bottom 3
Top 12	Year You Were Born	"I'm Your Baby Tonight"	Whitney Houston	5	Bottom 3
Top 11	Motown	"You've Really Got a Hold on Me"	The Miracles	6	Safe
Top 11	Elton John	"Bennie and the Jets"	Elton John	11	Safe
Top 9	Rock & Roll Hall of Fame	"Piece of My Heart"	Erma Franklin	2	Safe
Top 8	Songs from the Movies	"Call Me"	Blondie	6	Bottom 3
Top 7	Songs from the 21st Century	"Rolling in the Deep"	Adele	3	Bottom 3
Top 6	Carole King	"I Feel the Earth Move"	Carole King	3	Safe
		"Beautiful"		8
Top 5	Songs from Now and Then	"You and I"	Lady Gaga	5	Safe
		"The House of the Rising Sun"	Traditional	10
Top 4	Songs That Inspire	"Earth Song"	Michael Jackson	2	Safe
	Leiber & Stoller Songbook	"I (Who Have Nothing)"	Ben E. King	5
Top 3	Contestant's Choice	"What Is and What Should Never Be"	Led Zeppelin	3	Eliminated
	Jimmy Iovine's Choice	"Rhiannon"	Fleetwood Mac	6
	Judges' Choice	"You Oughta Know"	Alanis Morissette	9

[ Source: Wikipedia ]