Idol Chatter & Voice Views

Her audition: DeAnna Johnson, 18, of Hazlehurst, Ga., auditioned with Kodaline’s “All I Want.” She immediately displayed a unique tone. Her voice soared on the chorus, prompting Blake Shelton, Christina Aguilera and Pharrell Williams to turn their chairs almost simultaneously. A tender ending got Adam Levine to join them, giving DeAnna a four-chair turn. Adam complimented her on an “amazing job,” but said he also noticed some things she can work on. DeAnna joined Team Adam.

Her background: DeAnna auditioned for The Voice in Season 5, singing “Stars,” but failed to turn a chair. To that point, DeAnna admits she hadn’t had a lot of singing experience. Just some performances at rodoes and in church, “nothing really big.” But the disappointment of not making a show left her not wanting to sing in front of people because she didn’t think she was good enough. Said her father, Zachary: “It broke my heart to watch her not sing, because I knew she loves to.” After a six-month break, he convinced her to start singing again in church. Then he set up a little studio in their basement, where they practice. Though she’s from the south and has a southern accent, she says she prefers to sing pop and R&B music.

What the show didn’t show: What prompted DeAnna to try The Voice a second time? “I was about to start college, and then I decided, before I start doing something I don’t really want to do for the rest of my life, I’m going to give it one more shot,” she explains in her Voice interview video. Not that having been through the blind audition before settled her nerves. To the contrary, she said knowing how rejection felt the first time made her even more nervous the second time around. “I started off the song really shaky because I could not breath and my knees were shaking. Then I hit the chorus and thought, ‘Alright, I need to get it together.'” She succeeded of course. As for her style of music, “what matters the most to me is lyrics,” DeAnna says. “If the lyrics speak to me, that’s a song I want to do.” And, yes, she expected to pick Blake as her coach because of the kind words he had for her at her first audition. But in a conference call with the media, she said Adam’s critique reminded her of the way her dad coaches her. “He’s kind of, if I’m sucking it up he’s going to let me know. And it really helps me improve. So I was like that’s what I want in a coach is someone who’s not afraid to be like, ‘OK, that didn’t sound quite right.'”

On picking Adam: “They were all giving me a lot of compliments, and Adam was kind of the only one saying, ‘You need to work on this, and we could really work on this.’ I want someone who’s going to be honest with me.”

On iTunes: Just her Voice performances.

Update: She was pitted against Nicolette Mare in the battle round. They sang “Love Me Like You Do” in a performance that was part of a montage. Adam declared DeAnna the winner; Nicolette was eliminated. In the knockout round, she was matched against Blaze Johnson. DeAnna performed a slowed-down, acoustic version of Roxette’s “Listen to My Heart.” She was declared the winner again, earning a spot in the live playoffs.

Live playoffs: She sang “Down to the River to Pray” and was voted into the Season 8 finals by Voice viewers. The song landed at number 34 on iTunes’ singles chart.

Top 12: She performed “Oceans (Where My Feet May Fail).” The song landed at number 36 on iTunes overall singles chart, sixth best on the show. She landed at number one on the Christian singles chart for the second straight week. Yet on results night, she landed in the bottom three. She earned the first instant save of Season 8 after performing “It Will Rain.”

Top 10: She landed in the bottom three and was eliminated when the instant save went to Joshua Davis. On performance night, she sang “Somebody to Love.” The song hit 91 on iTunes, 10th best of 10 songs from the show.

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