Idol Chatter & Voice Views

This week brought a new single from Season 2 Voice contestant RaeLynn.

And tomorrow night, the 20-year-old country artist is the headliner at the Moon Township Independence Day Celebration outside Pittsburgh.

RaeLynn — real name Rachel “RaeLynn” Woodward — was the very first artist we met on Season 2. Then 17, she auditioned with “Hell on Heels,” a song recorded by Blake Shelton’s wife Miranda Lambert as part of the Pistol Annies.

She did that even though she recalled Blake’s lukewarm reaction to someone who auditioned with a Miranda song in Season 1.

Have no fear. Blake turned around shortly after she completed the first verse, and the country singer happily joined the team of the country judge, eventually cracking the show’s Top 16.

Since then, she released a 2012 single called “Boyfriend,” snagged a bit part in Blake’s video for “Boys ‘Round Here,” signed with the Big Machine Label Group and is set to open for Miranda at a pair of shows later this month (July 11 in Tuscaloosa, Ala., and July 12 in Rogers, Ark.).

Then there’s that new single “God Made Girls,” which was sitting in the Top 20 on iTunes country chart Thursday afternoon, two days after its release.

RaeLynn wrote the song last year with three other ladies, including another former Voice contestant Nicolle Galyon.

Now 20, Raelynn told Billboard she’s happy her label gave her time to develop before releasing more music.

“Instead of throwing me out to the wolves a couple years ago, he knew that if I sat and developed who I was that it would be a more long-lasting career,” she said in an interview you can read here. “I’m very thankful that they waited with me, because I didn’t know who I was a few years ago.”

Here’s an acoustic version of that new song, complete with an intro that shows RaeLynn is still the bubbly young woman we met on The Voice.