The real Taylor Hicks

Taylor Hicks knew the bum rap on “American Idol” winners.

Since the 2002 coronation of Kelly Clarkson, they’ve been regarded as empty vessels shuttled through a gantlet of songwriters, producers and industry honchos eager to committee-cobble a debut album packed with bankable hits.

“I’m not a piece of clay ready to be molded,” he told veteran producer Matt Serletic at their initial meeting last summer. “I’m pre-sculpted.”

To Hicks’ relief, the pair clicked immediately and set out to showcase the gravel-voiced Alabama belter in a disc that plumbed his Southern roots and soulful style.

The 12-track “Taylor Hicks,” released Tuesday, includes a cover of Marvin Gaye’s “Wherever I Lay My Hat,” tunes by Rob Thomas and Paul Pena, and Bryan Adams’ “The Right Place,” penned for Ray Charles, who died before he could record it.

Hicks wrote two cuts, “Soul Thing” and “The Deal.”

“The thread of this album is groove,” the silver-haired singer says, applying the term “modern womp” to his swamp-shaded blend of pop, funk and soul.

“I made sure it’s not shaped the way anyone other than myself wants it,” he says. “I understand the business. You can’t give up your artistic integrity. The backbone of this music is who I am as an artist. I can honestly say every song is a direct representation of me.”

The songs play to Hicks’ strength as “a fantastic singer who sings his heart out and passionately commits to performing,” Serletic says. “There’s something old-school about that. He could bring soul music forward.”

Since winning the show’s fifth run with 63 million votes, Hicks has been in “American Idol” overdrive, completing a summer tour with fellow finalists before hammering out the CD in seven weeks of 18-hour days.

“This pace, it’s like I’m trying to find the phone booth to put on the Superman outfit,” he says. “It’s been tough, but I understand that when there’s a demand, you have to supply.”

Hicks recalls all too vividly a preceding decade of low demand as he toured the South’s roadhouse circuit, fantasizing about a record deal.

“I slept, ate and breathed my dream, and nobody discouraged me,” he says – which is why not a single pal chided him when he fled to Las Vegas for “Idol” auditions.

He had a modest aim: “I got on the show to sing and find a decent agent to book me at fraternity parties.”

Instead he became “Gray Charles,” the Motown throwback whose blue-eyed soul and goofy dance steps upstaged his pop-leaning competitors.

Hicks believes his age (30) and experience proved vital in his victory.

“I started with Ray Charles as the foundation,” he says. “He taught me what a good song is. That’s all that mattered.

“I studied Van Morrison, Bob Seger, Supertramp, Jose Feliciano, Run-DMC. I tried to sing like Ray, Etta James, Elvis, Aretha.”

At 14, he was playing harmonica in blues bars. He taught himself to play guitar.

Soon he was on the road making a living when he didn’t have to resort to odd jobs (playing the Easter bunny in a mall, stripping floors in a nursing home).

He’s pouring his pre-“Idol” memories into a book.

“You can learn a lot from the back highways of Alabama and Georgia and the trials and tribulations I went through to get heard,” Hicks says. “I was a struggling musician and a struggling accountant. It’s a great motivator.”

He’s aware that the 30-million-plus “Idol” viewers don’t flock en masse to record stores.

“It doesn’t bother me,” he says. “My mentality is to try to write and produce a great album. I can’t speculate or worry about something I have no control over, like the record-buying public.

“The show was the greatest opportunity I’ve ever had. It allowed me to create this record and further my career. It served its purpose, and now I have to move on and be Taylor Hicks.”