American Idol’s David Archuleta, Utah’s favorite music son, has signed with 19 Recordings/Jive Records, just three and a half weeks before the Idol summer tour begins in Glendale, Arizona.

The first album from Archuleta, a 17-year-old high school student from Murray in the SLC metropolitan area, will likely be released later this fall or early winter once the Idol tour ends in mid-September. In a recent interview with Billboard, the young singer indicated that he has started to write some songs. “I thought that was really fun to do … I’d like to get into that more,” he told Billboard. “I think this experience on ‘American Idol,’ trying to figure out what songs work best with your voice and trying to arrange them, has really helped and I’d like to see if I can write some more stuff, because I’ve only written like three songs all the way.”

Three songs sung by Archuleta recently have shown on the Hot 100 chart. His versions of “Imagine,” “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me” and “In This Moment” bowed at No. 36, No. 58 and No. 60, respectively, last week.

In the press announcement, Simon Fuller, creator of the popular TV series and chief executive and founder of 19 Entertainment Label Group, had warm words for Archuleta:

“It was fascinating to watch David’s journey through Idol. He is a genuine pop star, and is a gifted singer who instantly won over a huge audience when he first appeared on the show. Since then, he has dealt with the pressure and the high level of expectation with real fortitude; he’s given us some of the best performances of the season. Without question David Archuleta has a great future ahead of him.”

Incidentally, Jive is part of the Zomba Label Group, which also carries Usher whose new album “Here I Stand” tops the charts, the highest debut of the year for a male artist.