Idol Chatter & Voice Views

Her audition: Lauryn Judd, 16, of Draper City, Utah, auditioned with Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Want to Have fun.” Midway through the performance, Blake Shelton, Gwen Stefani and Alicia Keys all turned around. Alicia called her a “special artist.” Lauryn joined Team Alicia.

Her background: Lauryn says she spends a lot of her school day in choir and theater classes. She said her friends know her as a singer and that she’s been singing ever since she could talk. At age 11, she joined a theater company called Utah COPA and they would travel and perform at events like Christmas festivals, Lauryn said. The interest in music comes naturally. Her dad sings in various church choirs.

What the show didn’t show:

* According to her Voice bio, Lauryn performed or the first time at age 4.

* She was named best female vocalist in the 2016 Corner Canyon High School Battle of the Bands competition, which featured eight bands and 40 musicians.

* She’s now a junior at Corner Canyon High School.

* As a contemporary company member at UtahCOPA, Lauryn got to storyboard and collaborate with the company’s team to produce her own music video. You can check it out below, for an original song called “Someone Else’s Shoes” that Lauryn wrote.

* During a conference call with the media, Lauryn described her music to Voice Views as “jazzy, soul, pop.” “As an artist, I like to take older songs and put my twist on them, and that’s what I did with ‘Girls Just Want to Have Fun,'” she explained. “And I think, going forward, I would like to make older sounding songs more jazzy, kind of bring back that old vibe. That’s the kind of music I would like to make.”

* As an example, she cited the music of two of her biggest influences: Carole King and John Mayer.

* Lauryn also said she went into her audition wanting to land a spot on Team Alicia Keys. “Alicia is just so genuine and so awesome,” she said. “She’s a songwriter. She started young. And she’s just a great example to me and my music.”

* At one point during Lauryn’s audition, Alicia thought she might be listening to a duet because of the way Lauryn’s tone changed. Lauryn said that’s “was just the way that my voice works. When I am in a more quiet lower place, I do have a different tone than when I try to get up to those higher notes. And I think that’s just kind of what happened. Also, I do think that, at that point when I did change my tone, I kind of realized that I had to push really hard to get a chair to turn around. So that could have played a part in it as well.”

Keeping up with Lauryn:
Twitter: @laurynjudd
Facebook
Instagram
YouTube

“Walk in Someone Else’s Shoes” (original)

“Almost Lover” (cover)