Idol Chatter & Voice Views

After last week’s episode of The Voice, Cody Belew is likely to be remembered more for his reaction to making a team than his performance.

For the record, he sang “Hard to Handle.”

And he was singing the final note, back turned to The Voice judges, when Cee Lo Green turned his chair around at the very last moment.

Cody turned around, a look of disappointment on his face, though he forced a smile.

Until he spied the “I Want You” light shining brightly at the bottom of Cee Lo’s chair.

Then he rushed toward Cee Lo, hugged him and unleashed a flurry of expletives born from excitement.

“I thought that was it,” he admitted, when he returned to the stage. “I just wanted to do good enough.”

Cody, 27, is from Beebe, Ark., where he grew up on a farm. He family was involved with the radio; his dad was a bull rider.

He recalls that he “had one foot in country music, but then, completely by accident, discovered soul music.”

“I believe, in my past life, I was an elderly black woman,” he says.

Oh, and when he learned he’d be auditioning for The Voice, he knew right away Cee Lo was the coach he wanted.

“Cee Lo Green is a showman. I am a showman,” he says. “The difference is, Cee Lo Green has gotten to say to someone, ‘I’m going to come out wearing a red winged latex suit with studs all over it, and I want to be shot out of a cannon.’ I’ve never gotten to say that to someone. I just have to dream about it.”

Cee Lo didn’t explain why he waited so long to turn his chair around, but he complimented Cody on an “obviously great voice.”

He also asked whether he was inspired by the Otis Redding or Black Crowes version of “Hard to Handle.”

Replied Cody: “Otis Redding has also spoken to me. But the Black Crowes allows me to move my hips a little more. That’s my favorite thing to do, entertain the crowd with a little bit of bam-bam.”

What the show didn’t show: A 2007 graduate of Arkansas Tech University with a degree in music, Cody now lives in Nashville. In 2010, he released or was preparing to release an album called “Paradise,” but it’s apparently no longer available, at least not on iTunes. Before moving to Nashville, he was lead singer of a cover band called Cody Belew and the Mercers that played in the Little Rock, Ark., area. Shortly after graduating from college, he tried out for American Idol and came away unimpressed, according to this interview. “I knew that wasn’t my way,” he said. “I won’t do it again. I’m not bitter … I get so much more of a thrill watching a bar fill up with people who came to watch me. I love to know I’m doing it the way all the people who I love and respect did it.” Oh, and his Facebook bio says he stuttered as a child. “He could not carry on in normal conversation,” it reads, “so he sang — all the time.” If he lasts long enough, expect fireworks from Cody and Cee Lo. “I want a big spectacle of a show,” Cody told Christina Milian in his post-audition interview. “I know Cee Lo does that. If he’ll come out in a white feather suit, I will, too.”

Update: He went a little wild after Cee Lo Green turned around at the last second for his version of “Hard to Handle.” Then, in the battles, he was pitted against the dancing dynamo named Domo, but prevailed on their version of Lady Gaga’s “Telephone.” He’s been more subdued since, singing “Jolene” to advance from a knockout round match against early favorite Avery Wilson. He got a save from Cee Lo after performing “One More Try” in the live playoffs. His version of Tina Turner’s “The Best” checked in at number 171 on the iTunes singles chart after Top 12 night, the lowest of the nine performances to crack the top 200.

Editor’s Note: Check back for live blogs throughout the finals on The Voice.

Cody singing “Bad Things”