01:00 AM EDT on Monday, August 2, 2004

BY RICK MASSIMO
Journal Pop Music Writer

Clay Aiken took a strong, expressive voice, added American Idol national-TV exposure and a squeaky-clean appeal and turned it into one of the best-selling albums of 2003. Now he's bringing his first solo tour to the Ryan Center tomorrow night, and, if the rest of his career is any indication, thousands of screaming fans will follow him.

Aiken's female fan base is well known for its devotion -- creating Web sites, throwing underwear at the stage, chasing the tour bus. "They're very enthusiastic," Aiken agrees, but he quickly credits the success of the American Idol show.

"Everybody -- Kelly and Ruben, Kelly especially -- symbolizes a real person making good and having [their] dream come true. And I've told her that many times -- that she's the reason all 70,000 of us lined up for that second season of Idol. . . . And I think that a lot of people who have dreams of making it big, they see the girl next door or the boy next door have success, and they relate to them much more.

"I mean, I can't relate to a lot of celebrities who are out there -- they dress too good for me; they talk too good for me; they're too cool. I don't know how to relate to that."

It wasn't supposed to happen this way. Aiken was studying at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte to teach children with developmental disabilities. His career plan was teaching, maybe becoming a high school principal. And while circumstances have changed, Aiken says, the ultimate goal is still the same.

Despite the two No. 1 singles and the No. 11-selling album of last year (Measure of a Man), Aiken finished his studies and graduated last December. He also set up the Bubel/Aiken Foundation, which helps children with disabilities (the foundation is named after himself and the family of an autistic North Carolina boy he was working with).

The creation of the foundation was something of an accident, he says. He started it as part of an independent study for school. His assignment was to create a mock nonprofit foundation, and make a prospectus on how it would work. In an interview in conjunction with last year's American Idol tour, Aiken mentioned the "foundation," and audiences started giving money at shows.

"And we were like, 'Oh, goodness. People don't understand that it's a fake foundation!' " Aiken says. "So we made it real."

The foundation integrates kids with disabilities into YMCA summer camp programs, and gives grants to people with disabilities "who are serving in their own communities rather than being served," Aiken says.

After his singing success, however, Aiken says classroom teaching is probably a thing of the past. "I doubt that I'd be able to go back to Raleigh and teach in a classroom and demand too much respect as a teacher, after all those kids had seen me on TV. But I see this foundation as a way to teach on a larger scale -- in a larger classroom, if you will. . . .

"I went and visited one of the summer camps that the foundation is funding, and got to see the kids playing, and some of my classmates from college, who are now special-education teachers, were working in the camp. . . . Makes me kind of jealous."

Is it real or is it TV?

To some, the TV-driven success of American Idol singers such as Aiken, Ruben Studdard and Kelly Clarkson lacks legitimacy. Where are the years spent scuffling and honing one's craft in smoky bars?

"I think there's a lot of people who think we didn't work so hard for it, didn't come up singing in clubs," Aiken says. "I didn't, but Ruben did, Fantasia [latest Idol winner Fantasia Barros] did. . . . Of the people who were successful on Idol, I think the only people who didn't try that hard [prior to the show] were Kimberley Locke [who finished third behind Studdard and Aiken last year] and myself -- we both had plans otherwise.

"But most everyone else had been trying to sing for years and years, and really paid their dues, and then found this particular door."

He calls Clarkson "one of the best singers that there is on the radio right now, period. As is Ruben. I'd like to think that I'm at least somewhere near that category. So it's great fodder for critics and whatnot -- it's an easy way to discount our legitimacy. Unfortunately, for critics, hopefully, we'll all three be around for quite a while."

Besides, it's pointed out, record companies don't exactly work on a strict merit system. "That's right . . . there's a lot of politics and everything. And this [the TV show] is just a more democratic way of doing it."

Next up for Aiken is a Christmas album, coming out Nov. 4. Then he'll begin picking out songs for his next album, due out the second half of next year.

"It's going to be very traditional," Aiken says of the Christmas album. "We want to do a perennial-type album, that can be sold year after year. . . . It's going to be a lot of classic Christmas songs, classic arrangements, that people can put on year after year when they're making their eggnog or sitting by the fire."

So what is it about Aiken? He's got a strong voice, but so do plenty of people out there who aren't doing as well. What's he got that they haven't got?

"Musically, I'm not sure. . . . [But] there has not been any artist in recent years who is very family-oriented. . . . I'm happy that we're able to put together an album, and even shows on the road, that the entire family can come to."

In a pop universe dominated by R&B, hip-hop, rock and country, the field is wide open for a middle-of-the-road, soft-rock singer like Aiken, and his potential audience is huge. Aiken says his audiences range from "4 to 84. . . . Which is another thing that critics are -- well, critical of. Artistically, it's not the most creative and new idea.

"People call me, all the time, vanilla. Which I don't find insulting at all. It's the most popular flavor -- you can't make half the flavors without vanilla. I think that critics find that to be less credible, but the public seems to be happy with it, and I'm happy to fill that opportunity."

Clay Aiken and special guest Cherie sing at the University of Rhode Island's Ryan Center, in Kingston, tomorrow night at 8. Tickets, at $38 and $32, are available at the box office, by calling 331-2211 or at www.ticketmaster.com.