Idol Chatter & Voice Views

Emily Ann Roberts, left, and Morgan Frazier prepare for their battle round match on The Voice. (NBC Photo)

The pairing didn’t exactly come as a shock to Morgan Frazier or Emily Ann Roberts.

They’re both aspiring young country singers, both blonds no less.

And both had landed on Team Blake during the Season 9 blind auditions on The Voice.

After those auditions, Morgan recalls that “I actually told her, ‘What do you want to bet we’re going get put in a battle together?’ I could foresee it. So when we were sitting in a room and they were telling us who we were going against, it was no surprise to me or Emily.”

The one big difference: experience.

Morgan was 22 when she auditioned, has been pushing for a music career in Nashville since age 16 and has already released original music and videos.

Emily was 16 when she auditioned and told The Voice she’d never had a vocal lesson prior to the show.

For the battle round, they were asked to sing “That Kind of Girl” by Patty Loveless. And both young ladies said they approached the performance more as a partnership than a competition.

“I think I just wanted to go up there and be myself and make the performance the best it could be,” Morgan said during a Wednesday afternoon conference call with the media. “That was kind of my strategy for it. I wanted me and Emily to go through so bad. And so I really wasn’t thinking, ‘Oh, what am I going to do to win this battle?’ I was thinking, ‘Let’s make this performance the best it can be.'”

Emily concurred.

“We were mainly focused putting on the best performance that we could do and making that song the best it could be,” she said. “Because if we had fun and were content with our performance, we were going to be happy for whoever won. Me and Morgan have become so close over this whole experience.”

And while Morgan’s country music experience could have been intimidating, it turned into an advantage, Emily added.

“I think that honestly helped me,” the teen from Knoxville, Tenn., said. “I learned so much from Morgan, and I think it made me go at it even harder because it was a challenge.”

Blake and the other coaches praised Emily’s potential. And at one point, Blake compared Morgan to Carrie Underwood.

In the end, he selected Emily to represent Team Blake in the knockout round, perhaps recalling the success he’s had with previous young country singers on The Voice — like RaeLynn and Danielle Bradbery.

But it turned into a dual victory for the young ladies. Because Morgan wound up being stolen by Pharrell Williams, who had teased Blake about the folly of pitting such talented young singers against one another.

For more on Morgan and her pre-Voice music, head here. For more on Emily, head here.

For more of the stories behind the battles on The Voice, head here.

Emily Ann Roberts and Morgan Frazier perform during the battle round on The Voice. (NBC Photo)

Emily Ann Roberts competes during the battle round on The Voice. (NBC Photo)

Morgan Frazier performs during the battle round on The Voice. (NBC Photo)