Idol Chatter & Voice Views

Her audition: Elise Azkoul, 28, of Atlanta, Ga., sang “Million Reasons.” She showed nice control and a really nice tone once she hit the chorus of the Lady Gaga hit. She also demonstrated that there’s some power behind that voice. All of which prompted a chair turn from Gwen Stefani midway through the performance. A nice ending, surprisingly, didn’t earn any other chair turns, so Elise automatically became a member of Team Gwen.

Here’s more about Elise:

* Her hometown is Grand Rapids, Mich., and she says she comes from a very musical Lebanese family.

* Her father’s side of the family, in fact, are renown musicians. Her grandfather was especially inspirational and Elise credits him for introducing her to jazz. Her cousin, Paul Jabara, had a co-wrote “It’s Raining Men” and wrote Donna Summers’ hit “Last Dance.”

* Elise became a voice-over actor on a Christian radio show at age 9, and that sparked her love of the studio, according to her Voice bio.

* She attended Wheaton College in Chicago, where she studied music and started performing at jazz clubs.

* Elise lives in Atlanta with her husband and works as a vocal coach, singer, songwriter and voice actor.

* Head to her YouTube channel and you can check out a video of Elise singing Alicia Keys’ “If I Ain’t Got You” to her husband at their wedding.

* Head to Elise’s website and you can check out six covers she posted, including one called “Thank U, Shaq,” to the tune of Ariana Grande’s “Thank You, Next.”

* In January, Elise visited the set of TNT’s Inside the NBA and serenaded Shaquille O’Neal with that song.

* In June, Elise released her first original single, a song called “Coffee Baby” that you can check out below.

* She also launched a successful Kickstarter campaign to help finance a debut jazz album, noting that her grandfather introduced her to the genre when she was young.

See also …
Elise Azkoul talks about her blind audition on The Voice

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Twitter: @EliseAzkoul
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