Idol Chatter & Voice Views

Her audition: Cali Tucker, 28, of Nashville, sang “Black Velvet” for her audition on The Voice. She said she tried to focus on the audience and ignore the coaches’ chairs when she hit the stage, determined to give a great performance. But she saw Blake Shelton’s chair spin when she hit “black velvet” in the lyrics. He turned out to be the only coach to turn. “I remember him looking at Adam and Shakira and Usher and going, ‘What is wrong with you all?’ and that was just a really cool moment.”

Her background: The Voice showed us only a snippet of her audition, but the show’s website tells us she’s the niece of Tanya Tucker, who had a string of country hits as a teen in the 1970s and is still recording music today. It also says she’s looking at the show as a chance to step out of Tanya’s shadow and make it on her own.

What the show didn’t show: Cali’s mother, LaCosta, is also a country singer and Cali traveled across the country with the Tanya Tucker and family show as a young girl. She tells Nashville.com that they’d pull her on stage when she was as young as 4 to perform songs like “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” and it was during those tours that she developed her love for performing. Eventually, she’d do her own set, singing songs she had written, according to her Facebook bio. In 2000, Cali won the title of Miss Teen All American, an honor that also sent her traveling across the country as a representative of the program. She has also worked as a singer and dancer at Dolly Parton’s Dollywood Theme Park at one point. She’s now strayed from her country roots a bit, describing herself as more of a “soulful, washed blues artist” in a recent conference call with the media. And she said she was a wee bit embarrassed when Blake asked about her famous aunt. “I never want people to think I’ve ever had a silver spoon in my mouth my entire life,” she said. “Otherwise, I would’ve already made it. I really wanted people to know that Tanya may be my aunt, but I am my own artist. That’s really important to me.”

On having Blake as a coach: “I know what my brand is as an artist. I want him to elaborate on that and be able to see past anything that I see and hear me and go, ‘OK, this is what we need to be doing. Let’s make a plan and get you on the right path.’ I’m going to step out of that little box that I’ve bene in for so long and I’m going to go wild.”

On iTunes: Her audition song plus a self-titled six-track EP from 2012. “It Won’t Be Long Enough” and “Right Where I Want You” are fun country rockers; Cali provides a wonderful vocal on the ballad “Only When I Breath.” You can hear full-length versions of all the songs on her ReverbNation page.

Update: She lost to Ryan Whyte Maloney in the battle round; they sang “What’s Love Got to Do With It.”

Keeping up with Cali:
Twitter: @CaliTucker
Facebook
YouTube
Website

Editor’s Note: For links to profiles of all the Season 6 artists on The Voice, go here.

“I’m In Love With A Ghost”

“I Put A Spell On You”

“What I Can’t Forget”