Continuing the streak of winners from the South, the Alabama boy beat the LA woman

LOS ANGELES -- The Soul Patrol just got upgraded to an army.

Taylor Hicks, the prematurely gray soul man from Birmingham, Ala., won the final vote over L.A. native Katharine McPhee to become the fifth "American Idol" in Wednesday's finale, and probably the most improbable winner in the show's history.

The 29-year-old is the second male winner of "American Idol," following Ruben Studdard in 2003. Studdard, coincidentally, is also from Birmingham.

Hicks received the majority of the 63 million-plus votes cast, although the breakdown wasn't revealed during the two-hour finale. In the past when "Idol" has declined to reveal the final margin, it's usually meant that it wasn't all that close.

Host Ryan Seacrest noted that the vote total (which also wasn't as high as some past "Idol" finales) was "more than any U.S. president has ever received," which means very little given that McPhee probably also received a fair number of those votes. (In the 2004 election, more than 122 million ballots were cast, and no one was allowed to vote more than once.)

Hicks may have been an underdog in the early going of this "Idol" season -- the judges split after his initial audition, with Paula Abdul and Randy Jackson overruling Simon Cowell's no vote. But as the finals wore on, it became clear that he had a fan base as strong as any contestant this side of Ruben and the 2003 runner-up, Clay Aiken.

And, based on Tuesday's final performance show, Hicks deserved to win. McPhee had a high with her rendition of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow," but Hicks was consistently strong over his three songs, including "Do I Make You Proud," which will be his first single.

Before we got to the revelation of this year's winner, though, we had to get through the typically bloated "Idol" finale. This year's affair was easier to take than its predecessors, as the show's producers seem to have realized it's okay not to take themselves too seriously.

The opening montage of the three judges was pretty amusing: Randy's collection of "dawgs," "dudes," "wows" and "hot ones!" and a best-of-Paula's-histrionics set to Whitney Houston's "So Emotional." Hands up, though, everyone who was disturbed by the repeated image of Simon rubbing his chest to the strains of "Do Ya Think I'm Sexy."

In fact, for a while there, it looked like we were going sail through the time leading up to the big announcement. The idea of having the finalists sing a duet with one of their favorite artists is a good one, and several of them -- Paris Bennett with Al Jarreau, Elliott Yamin with Mary J. Blige -- were quite good. (And how much fun was Taylor having dancing with Toni Braxton during "In the Ghetto"?)

The obligatory finalist medleys weren't too painful either, thanks mostly to the overall strength of this year's top 12. None of the finalists really makes you wince when you see them onstage.

On the flip side, we had to suffer through "Puck and Pickler," where the renowned chef tries to get Kellie to eat things like escargot and lobster, and Kellie makes faces. First Puck has to suffer through "Celebrity Cooking Showdown," and now this?

Then there were the Golden Idols, the show's collective nose-thumbing at the Emmys and whatever other awards it doesn't win that doubled as a clip show. But did we really need to see the poor Clay Aiken wannabe (since it was clearly just to get him to react to the real Clay) or the "Brokenote Cowboys" again?

Finally, at a quarter to 10 Eastern time, Ryan Seacrest signals it's time for the "big part of the show." And then we get Prince, which is pretty damn cool and worth waiting another five minutes to hear the results.

So, after one final performance by the two finalists (appropriately, if cheesily, "I Had the Time of My Life"), we learn that Hicks is your new American Idol. All hail the Soul Patrol.