Singing out about being back on tour

Jordin Sparks says overworking her vocal chords forced a rest but taught her "how much I can take and when to say that I can't sing anymore." (Matt Sayles/AP)

In early April, shortly before "American Idol" champ Jordin Sparks went on complete vocal rest due to a vocal cord hemorrhage, she detailed how easily such damage could have occurred.

The bubbly 18-year-old, who won season 6 of "Idol," spoke in a torrent of words, barely catching her breath and only doing so with interjections of "oh my gosh!" and "it was so crazy!" to describe the express train she's been riding since her big win a year ago.

On the phone from Los Angeles, where she was prepping for her new tour with Alicia Keys, which arrives at the TD Banknorth Garden on Wednesday, Sparks spoke of the "Idol" tour, the endless press, the Super Bowl performance, the television appearances, and a last-minute trip to Africa at the behest of first lady Laura Bush. Not to mention the marathon recording sessions for the self-titled debut album that has spawned hits "Tattoo" and "No Air," a duet with Chris Brown.

"Basically from the end of the tour in September to the middle of October I was in the studio," Sparks said of the album that shows off her youthful exuberance and flair for everything from dance pop to adult-contemporary ballads. "We were in New York for about a week, and I was in the studio 24/7. It was so insane! I think I recorded 10 songs that week and then I couldn't speak. It was very crazy and it was scary. But it helped me learn a lot about myself and my voice and how much I can take and when to say that I can't sing anymore or else I'm not going to have a voice."

Luckily, Sparks has recovered and is back on the tour she was very much looking forward to. She plans to play the Garden armed with her acoustic guitar to show audiences a different side of the girl they got to know on "Idol": "I'm eternally grateful to the show forever, but I know that when I go and sing my own songs, I feel so much more connected to the song and able to project it because I know it's mine."

Sales of Sparks's album were sluggish out of the gate, but it has gone on to achieve gold status, and the Arizona native remains wide-eyed at her success.

"The way I see it, the industry is so different from when Kelly [Clarkson] came out, when people still went and bought records," Sparks said. "Now everything's about singles and downloading and everybody buys just the songs they like unless the record is super-amazing. So for me the fact that I've sold over a half-million - if I think about that in terms of football fields, that is a ton of records!"

Sarah Rodman can be reached at srodman@globe.com.