For Daughtry, no place like ‘Home’

During the Christmas season in 1961, a grade-school girl walked into a record store on 86th Street in Brooklyn, N.Y.

The dollar bill she exchanged for the No. 1 pop song of the day, “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” by the Tokens, represented a month’s allowance. It was the first, but certainly not the last, record Barbara Underhill ever bought.

When she was a bit older, she attended many of the now legendary rock ’n’ roll shows produced by radio disc jockey Murray the K and presented at the Fox Theater in Brooklyn. By mid-decade, she was a huge fan of the Beatles and many of the other rock bands that gave musical voice to the 1960s and ’70s.

But by the time the 1980s rolled around, the music had gotten “too edgy” for her tastes, and she tuned out. She unexpectedly tuned back in during the late winter of 2006 when a guy named Chris Daughtry started appearing regularly on the television show “American Idol.”

The Fluvanna County High School graduate singlehandedly reawakened Underhill to contemporary music again.

“I had sort of dropped out of the music scene,” Underhill said recently via telephone from her home near Rochester, N.Y. “I listened to the oldies or show tunes, but I had gotten away from rock, because most of the contemporary stuff wasn’t my thing.

“Chris turned me onto listening to music again. And I started watching, believe it or not, VH1.

“I had never watched that channel before, but I started, because I wanted to see Chris’ videos. That made me see other videos, and I realized there was some really neat stuff out there.”

Daughtry and his band also has turned Underhill into what she describes as a “50-something rock band groupie.” She lamented the fact that she wouldn’t be able to catch the band’s performance tonight at the University of Virginia’s John Paul Jones Arena.

To date, she has seen Daughtry in concert seven times. In 2007, she flew to Las Vegas to see the band perform, and on another occasion drove hundreds of miles to catch one of the band’s gigs in a small club in Boston.

The mother of two is also an enthusiastic member of a group of Daughtry fans that call themselves the Yahs — Young at Hearts. The group came into existence as a result of Daughtry being voted off “American Idol” on May 10, 2006.

Underhill, like countless others, was shocked when Daughtry got the boot. She went online to see if she could find other Daughtry fans to commiserate with.

“A woman named Lisa Rey, whose screen name is ‘Old Hippie Chick,’ got the same vibes from seeing Chris as a lot of us did,” Underhill said. “She had this need to express her feelings about how strongly she felt about the talent of this man, and started this message board thread on a Web site called mrdaughtry.com.

“This is before Chris had an official Web site, and there wasn’t much on the Internet about him. I found Lisa’s post at the Yahs thread a month after Chris was voted off, and it was great to find others who shared my heartbreak over Chris losing on ‘American Idol.’

“It was also a place where we could root for him to succeed, and to get over that moment. To this day, we don’t know why Chris got voted off, but we’re all very grateful, as he is, that he did, because I don’t think his career would have been the same if he had won. He might not have had the same ability to make his own choices the way he has.”

The Yahs have evolved into something more than an online chat group. About 25 active members have stepped out of cyberspace to meet one another in the real world.

The thing about the Yahs is that we took a leap of faith,” Underhill said. “I went to Las Vegas to see a Daughtry concert, and meet up with 20 women I had never met other than online.

“We shared hotel rooms and the whole experience and it was magic. If one of us has a house near where there’s going to be a concert, we have a pajama party there and go to the concert together.

“Many of us have become incredibly close friends. I’m 58 and I just love the friendships I’ve made. It’s not just about the band anymore — it’s about friendships and caring about each other.”

Underhill said it was Daughtry’s voice that first caught her attention. After meeting the members of the band, and some of their wives as well, she has more reasons to like them.

“What I love about the whole band is that they’re all family guys,” Underhill said. “And they’re really wonderful performers who love, embrace and appreciate their fans.

“It’s amazing how very involved all the guys are with the fans. They appreciate the success they have, and they convey that to us. Brian Craddock [a Charlottesville native] is an incredibly talented guitarist, and probably one of the more shy members of the band.

“His wife has gotten to know some of us online, and Twitters with us.”

Musically speaking, Underhill is as aware of the scene today as she was back in 1961 when she bought her first record. Although she wouldn’t have imagined back then that she’d become an enthusiastic rock-band groupie at this stage in her life, she knows exactly why she is.

“A man like Chris, with his voice and his heart, can touch the lives of so many people and bring them together, because he’s so sincere,” Underhill said. “The talent is there, but when you add the sincerity, the heart, the love of family and how he shares his life with his fans, that makes him a very special guy.

“And every single member of that band is the same way. Most of the Yahs are in their 30s, 40s and 50s, and I’ll be 59 soon. But this whole experience has really made me feel young again. It has been a wonderful ride.”

Daughtry will be performing at the University of Virginia’s John Paul Jones Arena tonight at 7:30.

Tickets range from $31.50 to $41.50, and can be purchased at www. john pauljonesarena.com or by calling (888) JPJ-TIXS (575-8497).