Talk:R. J. Helton

Untitled

For unjustifiable reasons this highly relevant article has disappeared and needs to be recreated ASAP. Best, --24.154.173.243 01:52, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Archives of Helton's official websites

In the "External links" section, I've added archives of Helton's official websites. RJHelton.com was operated from 2004 through 2005, and RJHeltonMusic.com was operated from 2007 through 2013. The archive for the latter website, unfortunately, doesn't display very clearly - there is a grey bar somewhat near the top of the page that can be clicked on in several places. The grey bar contains seven different tabs. Although those tabs cannot be read in the archived page, they still work. I'll link directly to each of them here. From left to right, the tabs are: Home, News, Music, Press Info, Photos, Store, and Contact. --Jpcase (talk) 05:34, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

Also - the homepage for RJHeltonMusic.com appears to remain unchanged from 2007 through early 2010. It then updates with this archive captured on March 28, 2010. That second version of the homepage appears to remain unchanged all the way through the final archive of the page, which was captured on June 15, 2013. Because the webpage doesn't display properly on the Way Back Machine, it's possible that other changes occurred during that time span and are simply not visible, but if so, those would likely have been fairly minor updates. It seems as though only one update of note ever occurred to the homepage. --Jpcase (talk) 15:39, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

Some notes about the other pages on RJHeltonMusic.com:

• There are three distinct versions of the News page - the earliest version and the second version appear to be identical, except that images contained in the first version no longer display properly in the second version. The third (and final) version contains new information and was first archived on December 17, 2009.
• There are two distinct versions of the Music page - the first version contains a couple links that are not included in the aforementioned homepage tab. One of these links is to a "fan site", which doesn't display anything when you click on it but does allow you to download a fan letter; the other link is to an "About" page. Only one version of the About page was ever archived. The second version of the "Music" page was first archived on June 8, 2007.
• There is only one version of the "Press Info" page (although it was archived multiple times). The "Press Info" page is simply a newer version of the "About" page; their only difference is in how the pages are designed. The text contained on each page is identical.
• Nothing on the "Photos" page displays properly for me, so I can't see whether the page went through any updates; as far as I can tell, only one version of this page was ever archived.
• The "Store" page, for some reason, displays in what my web browser says is Latin, and when I ask my browser to translate the text into English, which is usually at least somewhat effective, everything is nonsense. I'm seeing the phrase Lorem ipsum, so it seems like maybe the page was never finished. As far as I can tell, only one version of the "Store" page was ever archived (although it was archived multiple times).
• There are two distinct versions of the "Contact" page, each with a different address for Publicity / Media Inquiries - the first version contains a New York address; the second version contains a California address.

--Jpcase (talk) 16:57, 3 January 2021 (UTC)

Fan Club website

Before this Wiki page was redirected and subsequently recreated, it contained an external link to an RJ Helton fan club website. Since there's no clear indication that the website had been officially affiliated with Helton (it may have been, but I haven't seen any reason to assume that it was), I won't include a link to the website in the current version of this Wikipedia article. But it's worth noting here that the website contained music by Helton that wasn't included on the album, Real Life. Apparently Helton had two demo albums, each with five tracks, and also released at least four songs after Real Life. Unfortunately, the fan site isn't online anymore, and none of the downloads seem to work in the version of the fansite that was archived by the Way Back Machine. --Jpcase (talk) 17:32, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

I somehow must have not noticed until now that the fan club website in question, rjaholics.com, is listed as Helton's official fan club in the links section of Helton's official website, as can be seen at the bottom of the page here. As such, I feel comfortable using rjaholics as source for the simple, non-contentious claim that Helton released demo albums prior to his participation on Idol. --Jpcase (talk) 02:55, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

It's also worth noting that rjaholics included an "exclusive" download of "Even If (Jones & Sol Pacifico's Vibelicious Island Breeze Club Mix)" on this page. Unfortunately, there no longer seems to be any way to download the song. --Jpcase (talk) 17:40, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

I've also found out that rjaholics was run by the same person who ran Helton's official website, as explained here. --Jpcase (talk) 21:16, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

Additional sources

I'm not sure yet if I'll find a way to work either of these into the article - but wanted to note two interesting magazine pieces about Helton that I've come across. The first, which can be seen here, is an interview with CCM Magazine that Helton and Kelly Clarkson did together in May 2004, just a couple months after the release of Real Life. The second, which can be seen here, is a story published in the January/February 2004 issue of Campus Life. According to this archived page from Helton's official website, the Campus Life article was that issue's cover story. --Jpcase (talk) 20:13, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

Non-album music

For my benefit, I'm making a list here of all songs released by Helton that weren't on Real Life, the Idol compilation CD, or part of his collabs with Scott Alan. I'll add more as I find them and will likely post most or all of this to the Discography section eventually.

Demo Albums [1] [2]

• Demo Album #1
  • When You Touch Me
  • You Saved Me
  • Where Is Your Heart
  • Rachel's Song
  • Praise Him
• Demo Album #2
  • His Eye Is On The Sparrow
  • Let Me At Your Heart
  • If It Breaks My Heart
  • Maybe Manana
  • Blinded By The Blue

RJ-Aholics Exclusive [3]

• "Even If" (Jones & Sol Pacifico's Vibelicious Island Breeze Club Mix)

Jpcase (talk) 14:23, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

Non-album songs released December 17, 2005 [4]

• "Hot"
• "I Miss You"

Non-album songs released February 15, 2006 [5]

• "Hot"
• "Majic Man"
• "Lose Your Love"
• "Come On Over"

(note: "Hot" is listed as a "new" song in the Dec. 17, 2005 list and in the Feb. 15, 2006 list, whereas "I Miss You" is listed only in the Dec. 17, 2005 list. I'm not sure why this is. I'm also not sure if "Majic" in "Majic Man" is intentionally misspelled or if whoever set up the website simply made a typo.)

Demo Albums

I've added Helton's two demo albums to the discography section. As mentioned in the previous talk page sections, I'm using Helton's officially endorsed fansite, RJAholics.com, as a source. But I also managed to track down a physical copy of Helton's first demo album and am able to use that as an additional source. The fansite is actually missing a track from that first demo album - only five tracks are listed on the fansite, whereas in reality the album has six tracks. The sixth track is an acappella version of "His Eye Is on the Sparrow". According to RJAholics, this same song is also the first track of Helton's second demo CD. I don't know if Helton made two separate recordings of the song or not. RJAholics does not describe the track on the second demo album as an acapella recording, so these might be different versions. But I haven't been able to track down a physical copy of Helton's second demo album, so I can't say for certain.

RJAholics simply titles Helton's first two demos as RJ's Demo CD #1 and RJ's Demo CD #2. That said, the physical copy of the first demo is titled R. Jay, so I've used that title for it in the discography. It bears emphasizing that the title writes his first initial simply as "R." but then spells out his second initial as "Jay". I have never seen Helton's name stylized this way anywhere else.

I've also been able to add a few album details, such as the year and label, for the first demo, using the album's back cover as a source. Jpcase (talk) 14:37, 30 April 2024 (UTC)