American Idol Star David Cook Hospitalized

One of the favorites to win American Idol - David Cook - has been hospitalized for "heart palpitations" according to a People Magazine report. 

This occurred immediately following his Tuesday evening performance. 

Cook performed a rendition of Dolly Parton's "Little Sparrow," but was noticeably absent when the contestants sat with the audience.

Gambling911.com declared Cook the potential American Idol winner weeks ago when he was listed with long 60 to 1 odds.  The rocker has blown away viewers with his modern arrangements of songs such as Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean" and Lionel Richie's "Hello".

FOX declined to comment on the Cook story, the "American Idol" publicity team told FOXNews.com.

Show medics said Cook's blood pressure was "far too high" and urged the aspiring "Idol" to seek treatment, but he did not want to leave until the show concluded, the Web site said.

Doctors gave Cook medicine to bring down his blood pressure and released him after a few hours, TMZ said. He was taken to the "Idol" apartments and was "doing fine," People magazine reported.

Cook reportedly has been under tremendous pressure as a result of his brother's battle with cancer.  TMZ.com reports that he had previously collapsed before performing on an earlier show.

The website DialIdol.com - an American Idol prediction model that measures busy signals - had Cook among the most likely to move on to perform next week.

It was unclear whether he would be present during Wednesday night's Results Show.

If Cook were to win he would become the second American Idol hailing from Oklahoma, where he presently resides, although he was born in Texas and raised in Missouri.  Season 4 winner, Carrie Underwood, also came from Oklahoma.

As pointed out on Wikipedia, Cook has taken advantage of the decision to allow contestants to play musical instruments. Besides his acoustic guitar performance in the Hollywood auditions, he also accompanied himself on electric guitar for his performances of "All Right Now", "Hello" and "Day Tripper". His white, left-handed Gibson Les Paul guitar has the letters "AC" on it; as Cook told TV Guide, "I have two brothers, Adam and Andrew. So, because of superstition, I put their initials on everything growing up."Since top 12 week he has also been wearing an orange wristband to support a 7-year-old fan with leukemia.

Cook has been both praised and criticized for his song choices, as several of his performances have been based on covers of the original songs. "Billie Jean", his most notable performance so far, was credited on the show to Chris Cornell and was highly praised by all three judges, especially Simon Cowell (Cowell later said in an interview with Entertainment Weekly that the performance "was in a different league to anything we've heard on the season so far," and although he knew where the arrangement came from, "that doesn't really matter".) Another of Cook's performances, "Day Tripper", was credited to Whitesnake. It has also been claimed that his version of "Hello" was from Incubus frontman Brandon Boyd and that his performance of "Eleanor Rigby" was based on Seattle-based band Doxology's version. On April 1, right before his rendition of self-arranged "Little Sparrow", Cook responded to Ryan Seacrest in the interviewing session, revealing that his performance of "Eleanor Rigby" was based on Doxology's version. Despite the controversy, some critics praise Cook for choosing versions of songs that fit his vocal style.

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Jordan Bach, Gambling911.com

Originally published April 2, 2008 10:46 am EST