Idol Chatter & Voice Views

Jimmy Smith is among a handful of Season 12 American Idol contestants who have already released music.

Head to iTunes and you can download his seven-track 2011 CD “Stay Right Here.”

On Facebook, we learn that he wrote the songs and recorded the album while pursuing his undergraduate degree at Belmont University and his master’s at the University of Tennessee.

Now 25, the Waynesboro, Tenn., native is employed full time as a social worker at a dialysis clinic in the Nashville area and works on his music in the evening and on weekends.

Sometimes, the lines get blurred, according to that Facebook bio, which says he’s been known to show up for a writing session wearing scrubs and at the dialysis clinic wearing cowboy boots.

Now that’s something we didn’t see in his audition.

Speaking of his audition, Jimmy turned up in Charlotte, N.C., proclaiming that Keith Urban was one of his major musical inspirations.

He auditioned online intially, then sang Rascal Flatts’ “God Bless the Broken Road” for the judges.

When he finished, Nicki Minaj provided a critique country singers probably don’t hear every day. “I think you poppin’. Like you mad, fly.”

Jimmy just laughed. “OK.”

The feedback from the other judges was more typical. Well, more typical of what a singer who’s just wowed them might hear. Jimmy sailed off to Hollywood unanimously.

In his Road to Hollywood video, he says he didn’t start singing until his later years in high school. The first time his mother heard him sing was when he performed the national anthem before a high school basketball game. He recalls that she cried because she was so proud.

He thinks his unique take on country music might help set him apart on the show.

“There’s been plenty of awesome country talent on the show,” he says, “but I don’t know how many sort of powerhouse country soul singers, who have been males, there have been. I’d hope to bring that flavor to the show.”

Oh, he also calls himself tenacious. After all, this year marked his fourth time auditioning for the show.

Below are three videos of Jimmy singing. As for that album, be sure to check out two tunes in particular — “More to Me Than You” and “What If She Loved Me.”

“The Secrets That We Keep”

“Free Falling”

“Raining on Sunday”