‘Amercian Idol’ finale THE FINAL BATTLE

May 25, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

Bowersox can’t wait to reveal songs

Associated Press

ELLISTON, Ohio

Long before she adopted the dreadlocks, “American Idol” finalist Crystal Bowersox discovered what she needed to make sense of the world.

She calls it her comfort blanket — her guitar — and has been dragging it around ever since finding her mom’s six-string while snooping for Christmas presents when she was just 10 years old.

There’s been one with her nearly every step, in Toledo’s smoky dive bars and Chicago’s subway stations, helping her navigate through plenty of hard times.

Her parents divorced when she was a toddler, leaving her bouncing among several homes.

She was diagnosed with diabetes in the second grade and struggled to stay out of hospitals.

And after leaving home at age 17, she ended up in Chicago singing for rent money in coffeehouses and blues clubs before coming back home pregnant and broke.

“To put her thoughts to music, that I’m sure was an escape,” said one of her mentors, Bobby May, who gave her the chance to sing between his sets in bars around Toledo when she was barely a teen.

Even at that young age, he said, Bowersox wasn’t intimidated by her surroundings. “Once you get into the music, you can block out any distractions,” May said.

“Idol” watchers have come to know her as a singer with a cool stage presence and raw vocals that evoke Janis Joplin and Melissa Etheridge — and as the 24-year-old mother of a toddler, Tony. But what they haven’t gotten to discover yet is her songwriting.

So far, “Idol” producers have resisted her pleas to play one of her originals. She’s still hoping to sing one of her own songs in the finale tonight.

Bowersox has been a favorite all season on the Fox singing competition along with Lee DeWyze of Mount Prospect, Ill., another bluesy 24-year-old.

This year’s “Idol” will be crowned Wednesday night.

Friends say Bowersox hoped trying out for the show would draw attention to her songwriting and that before “Idol” she had talked about moving to Nashville, Tenn., to become a songwriter.

“When America starts hearing her original music, that’s when the true artist is going to come out,” said Dave Gierke, one of her former music teachers at the Toledo School for the Arts.