Bo Bice Is Free as a Bird

Bo Bice is a devout member of a Presbyterian church near his home in Helena, Alabama, so it's apt that he should consult his spiritual adviser, Pastor Donny Acton, about a decision as major as this: Standing on the lot of a Ford dealership near Helena, the American Idol runner-up mulls whether to get his 2005 Mustang -- a souped-up 1967 replica -- in gun-metal gray or bright red with black racing stripes. A local TV news crew films his deliberations, and a dozen or so fans linger nearby waiting on autographs. Bice hollers to Acton, "What do you think, Donny?"

"Get the red," the pastor advises. "If you're going to do it, you ought to do it right."

The Southern rocker with the shoulder-length hair narrowly lost the American Idol title to angelic Oklahoma girl Carrie Underwood, but Bice isn't complaining. Orders for his debut single, featuring his cover of the Ides of March's 1970 hit "Vehicle," easily outpaced pre-release sales for Underwood's debut. Along with Constantine Maroulis, Bice was one of Idol's two "rockers" this season. With his long hair, tunics and leather sandals, he often looked like Gregg Allman guesting on an episode of The Partridge Family. Simon Cowell predicts that Idol has stained Bice as too much a pop product for the rock world. But when Bice arrives home in his new red Mustang, he gets a phone call saying that Carlos Santana wants the twenty-nine-year-old to sing a track on his next record. Two nights later, Willie Nelson brings Bice onstage during his show in Birmingham to duet on "Will the Circle Be Unbroken."

If anything, Bice is happy to be the Idol runner-up. "People ask me, 'What were you thinking while you stood there waiting for them to announce the winner?'" says Bice. "'Please, God, don't let me win this thing.' I never told anybody that. The label 'American Idol' was not for me. I'm not a pop person. It would have been even harder to play my kind of music if I had won."