Idol Chatter & Voice Views

How’s this for a coincidence?

A week before learning what she’d be singing in the battle round on The Voice, Mary Sarah says she was listening to “Louisiana Woman, Mississippi Man” by Loretta Lynn and Conway Twitty while driving.

“And I was like this would actually be a really good battle song,” she recalls, laughing. “And then to get to be told we were singing the song was like, ‘My gosh, I totally guessed it.'”

Mary Sarah, 20 when she auditioned and turned four chairs on The Voice, wound up being matched with fellow country singer Justin Whisnant in a Team Blake battle.

Praising her stage presence, Blake declared her the winner, meaning she advances to the knockout round. Justin was eliminated. But their iTunes version of the song wound up being one of the most popular on iTunes, climbing to 61 on the country singles chart the day after it aired.

Mary Sarah says she was far from certain she’d win because Justin “gave his all. I mean, he was so amazing.”

“I was just, you know, grateful to be on that stage and thankful that I got to (perform) that song because Loretta’s one of my idols. And so to get to perform her song on the stage was absolutely an honor.”

Mary Sarah wasn’t alone. Fellow Nashville resident Kata Hay had an omen — well, at least sort of — about her battle round song.

She was matched against Chelsea Gann in a Team Christina battle match. They sang “I’m the Only One” by Melissa Etheridge. Kata’s spunky, sassy stage presence helped her prevail; Chelsea was eliminated.

Kata, 28 when she auditioned and turned three chairs, says it’s a song she sings “all the time” at the karaoke bar where she works.

“Like two weeks before I left (for the show), I was singing it on stage and I was thinking, ‘I could actually see me doing this on The Voice. I never thought that it would be the battle song, because I wasn’t thinking of it as a duet.

“It’s such a strong, powerful woman song,” she adds. “And singing it with a strong, powerful woman (Chelsea), we were both ecstatic about it.”

But like Mary Sarah, Kata was far from confident in the outcome when the singing ended.

“I really was standing there preparing myself to go home,” she says. “That’s why I started to cry, because it was the craziest emotion because I completely was in shock. I’m just glad Christina saw whatever it was that I was able to put into the performance, because Chelsea, she’s out of this world.”

See also:
Meet the singers from Season 10 of The Voice
Jessica Crosbie ‘shocked’ by The Voice steal
Live blogging here when battles resume Monday night

Here’s what Tuesday’s other battle round winners said about the songs they were asked to perform.

Nick Hagelin of Team Pharrell who won his battle round, singing “Electric Feel.” Opponent Jessica Crosbie was stolen by Adam Levine:

“I was actually happy with the song choice because it was a song I was familiar with. I actually hadn’t performed it before but I had been listening to the song for, you know, as long as it’s been out.

“It sat in a comfortable place for me and it was, you know, a male song and it was an up-tempo song. I think it allowed me to sort of just relax and enjoy myself during the performance, which is what hopefully came through.”

Nate Butler of Team Adam, who sang Tori Kelly’s “Hollow” against Natalie Yacovazzi and prevailed. Natalie was eliminated. Tori is Adam’s battle round adviser.

“(The song) was new for us. We were learning it from scratch. But I feel like, you know, we changed the key a little bit and I was able to navigate it pretty well,” adding he thought the outcome could have gone either way because of how well Natalie performed.

“Once we changed (the key) it was in a nice, powerful spot in my voice. I was able to slip into falsetto sometimes and, you know, really show off the chest voice and stuff like that. I was really able to show off everything I could do.”

Tamar Davis was also asked to sing a song — “Lady Marmalade” — made famous by her team’s adviser, Patti Labelle. Not to mention the fact that coach Christina Aguilera has covered he song.

That made the performance extra special, says Tamar, who won her battle over Shalyah Fearing. But Shalyah she was stolen, meaning both advance to the knockout round.

“I have performed Lady Marmalade several times, but it was such a different experience because I was performing it with someone else.

“Shalyah brought her A game like never before. Like it just put me to a whole different space of bringing something else to the table. We were performing an iconic song.”

Hannah Huston prevailed in the battle round, singing Sia’s “Elastic Heart” with Maya Smith, her roommate on The Voice. But again, both advanced because Maya was stolen by Christina. Their performance also did well on iTunes, hitting 111 on the pop singles chart the night after the show.

Hannah says she and Maya had heard the song before “but had never sung it through,” leaving them with lots of learning to do.

“But then over time, we just kind of fell in love with it and put our own little twist on it,” she explains. “It comes from a really deep, dark place of there’s just a lot of hurt.

“It was an interesting song selection, but I totally get why Pharrell gave us it. It was a challenge and kind of was an equalizer, just to learn something new and really challenge both of us.”