AP) You'd have thought it was Alabama vs. Anybody U. for the national championship in football instead of Taylor Hicks vs. Katharine McPhee in a TV talent show.



Hicks' hometown was abuzz Wednesday over the soul singer's chance to become the next big thing on "American Idol," which has had a winner or runner-up with Birmingham ties in four of its five seasons.

This old steel city once called itself "The Football Capital of the South," mainly because the University of Alabama played most big games at Legion Field during its gridiron heyday. These days, city promoters might want to consider calling it "Idoltown."

Callers on sports talk shows chattered about the gray-haired Hicks leading up to the two-hour finale on Fox, and fans from as far away as Connecticut and Kentucky showed up at a radio station event to meet his band.

"It's pretty wild," said Zippy Dieterich, drummer of the Little Memphis Blues Orchestra, which calls itself the "next generation" of The Taylor Hicks Band. "People really seem to be getting involved this year."

Hicks hysteria reached all the way to Alabama's gulf coast, where a restaurant owned by the sister of Alabama-raised singer Jimmy Buffett threw a party for hundreds of fans, including Hicks' grandmother.

Hicks, 29, lives in the Birmingham suburb of Hoover, where he played high-school basketball and sang in bars before he was old enough to be in a nightclub legally. Thousands of people turned out to see Hicks when he paid a made-for-TV visit after advancing to the finals two weeks ago.

Hicks has the chance to be the biggest "Idol" phenom yet from Birmingham.

Ruben Studdard, the "velvet teddy bear," won the second season in 2003 and made the city's area code famous with his "205" shirts. Bo Bice of the Birmingham suburb of Helena was a finalist last year.

In between Studdard and Bice, Diana DeGarmo was the runner-up in 2004. She listed her hometown as Snellville, Ga., but she was born in Tune Town, aka Birmingham.