“I didn’t feel like that,” Daughtry said in a recent phone interview. “It was definitely a shock to me at that moment in time. You’re in a contest, and you get to a point where you want to win it. That’s why you got in it. And then when that didn’t happen it was like, ‘Oh,’ so you have to kind of re-think your game plan a little bit.”

Maybe somewhere inside, Daughtry immediately knew all was not lost. He certainly couldn’t have known how much good losing the way he did on “Idol” was going to do for his rock ‘n’ roll career.

The dust and the outcry over Daughtry losing any chance to win had not even settled before it became clear just how big an impression he had made on the show.

“It took me about two days to get over it,” he said. “I was like, ‘You know what? Keep going with it and move on.’ Next thing you know, Clive Davis wanted to meet with me, and the rest is history.”

The legendary Davis, the head of RCA Records, has had huge success in signing other “Idol” winners, including Kelly Clarkson, Clay Aiken and Fantasia Burrino. Several months after that defining moment on “Idol” in May 2006, both Daughtry and Davis have come out smelling like the proverbial rose. Daughtry’s self-titled first CD was released in November 2006 and debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart; by mid-December 2006, it was certified platinum for 1 million in sales. The CD has now sold more than 3 million copies in the United States, spawning three multiformat hit singles “Home,” “It’s Not Over” and “What I Want” in the process