It was 12:30 a.m. in the drive-through of a McDonald’s in Ann Arbor last month, and Crystal Bowersox and her son were on foot.
This was not the most glamorous place for a former “American Idol” runner-up to be, but so goes her life, and she’s proud of it. She was pretending to drive an invisible car, which embarrassed 17-year-old Tony, and she was fine with that, too..
Back in 2010, tens of millions of people knew Bowersox’s name. On April 21, she sang for maybe 100 at The Ark on Main Street, just after her van died and the two sound engineers at the nonprofit music club stepped in to help.
The audience did its part, too. As she stood signing merchandise after the show, some fans with no items to pay for simply handed her currency, intended to return her to the road.
The story would be better if she and Tony had motored home to suburban Nashville a few days later in her yellow 2022 Ram ProMaster 3500, laughing about their misadventure and the absurdities of a musician’s life: sputter and shudder to Ann Arbor’s only Dodge dealership at 25 mph, walk 2 miles for double cheeseburgers, picnic on the McDonald’s grass, take a Lyft back to spend what was left of the night in the misbehaving van.
Instead, she said, her home away from home — picture a domesticated DHL delivery van, with a bed, ceiling, flooring, windows and lighting she installed herself — sat neglected for two weeks, until she was on the verge of having it towed to a repair shop with more ambition.
That doesn’t happen to Kelly Clarkson, who won the first season of “American Idol” in 2002, or Adam Lambert, who finished second the year before Bowersox. But they had different ambitions then, and presumably different expectations now.
“I never had any aspirations to play stadiums,” said Bowersox, 40, by phone from Tennessee. “I don’t quantify success by the size of the venue or the crowds.”
Rather, she said, the goal is to make connections — with audiences, with the admirers who buy her hand-tooled leather goods and hand-beaded kerchiefs, and with the guy at a car rental outlet in Ann Arbor who was listening to blues-and-Americana singer Susan Tedeschi when Bowersox popped in to book a Jeep for the trip south.
“If you like her,” Bowersox said, “you might like my music,” and he called after a few days of listening to say that indeed he does.
She’d rather have a functioning vehicle, but it’s always nice to find a new fan.
The long and winding career path
Bowersox grew up near Toledo, where she had spent a month visiting with family before her show at The Ark.
At 17, she moved to Chicago, knowing she wanted to make music her life and figuring that busking at train stations was part of the process.
She played open mics and small clubs, and then, at 24, auditioned for the ninth season of “American Idol.” She was smart enough to recognize what the program wanted — the grand, soaring peak in a vocal was known as “the money note” — and talented enough to provide it.
In a setting where contenders typically earn or are assigned an identity, Bowersox became know for her since-abandoned dreadlocks, her Type 1 diabetes, and never having an off night that put her at risk of elimination.
Judge Simon Cowell said her performance of “Up to the Mountain” in the finals was “by far, the best performance and song of the night,” and then the TV audience gave the top prize to fellow singer-songwriter Lee DeWyze.
Back to her roots
When the field narrowed to the top 24, she said, everyone signed an onerous contract with “words like ‘perpetuity’ and ‘throughout the universe’ sprinkled in.”
That tied her to a national tour, but it was decent fun. Bottom line, she said, “I’m really grateful for the exposure that show graced me with. You can’t get that anywhere else.”
Now she’s back to what she always was, she said — a folk artist, writing songs that fit comfortably at The Ark or around a campfire. And there’s a small carton on her merchandise table, next to the sourdough starter and coffee mugs, called the “You Should Have Won Box.”
Ages ago, a friend overheard yet another stranger telling her she had deserved first place, and said, “If you only had a dollar for every time someone said that.”
That’s what the box is for, and mostly, she donates what’s in it to charity. In Ann Arbor, something more personal sparked her attention:
The coil on her van’s sixth cylinder.
Side jobs and rusty floorboards
The volunteer sound techs that night were Craig Brann and Bill Milus. Since Bowersox had to beach her whale in the first available parking lot, instead of idling outside the stage door while she unloaded, they helped transport her equipment.
Then they offered to diagnose her problem, a process that usually involves muttering, some manly chin-stroking and a few ideally educated guesses. Milus, however, owns an automotive code reader. He pinpointed the issue, but the dealership didn’t get around to confirming his findings until Tuesday, May 5.
By then, Bowersox had posted a pointed video on TikTok. But her career depends on the van, so her plan is to rent another car, drive back north after Mother’s Day, fork over $1,600 hard-earned folk singer dollars, and hope her muse comes up with a properly caustic song about the entire experience.
Meantime, she has been driving Tony’s rust-floored 2008 subcompact.
“We call it the Honda not-so-Fit,” she said, but it’s reliable enough that sometimes, she uses it to DoorDash.
Kelly Clarkson doesn’t do that, either.
“Everyone in Nashville has some sort of side hustle,” Bowersox said, to fill the lean times between clusters of gigs. Along with her artwork, she shoots photos and music videos.
“My main goal is to provide my son with a better life than I had,” she said, “and I accomplished that. That, to me, is success.”
The rest is just details, or maybe lyrics.
She hopes to have a new album out soon. That’s worth knowing. The dreadlocks are long gone. She’s still paying on the van, her companion for 108,000 miles so far.
At The Ark, she played two guitars and a piano, and you couldn’t tell she’s dealing with carpal tunnel syndrome and early onset osteoarthritis.
She loves music anyway, and The Ark adores her.
“She’s wonderful,” said administrative manager Greta Barnard. “We try to get her back every chance we get.”
Maybe next year. She knows the way, and word is that Ann Arbor has some restaurants where you don’t have to sit on the lawn.
Reach Neal Rubin at NARubin@freepress.com.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: ‘American Idol’ alum Crystal Bowersox winds up vanless in Ann Arbor
Reporting by Neal Rubin, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
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