Idol Chatter & Voice Views

Her audition: Ellie Lawrence, 26, of Calhoun, Ga., auditioned with Jermaine Stewart’s “We Don’t Have to Take Our Clothes Off.” Her unique tone prompted an almost immediate chair turn from Adam Levine. Gwen Stefani and Pharrell Williams soon followed. Ellie had voiced a pre-audition preference for Team Gwen, and followed through.

Her background: Ellie tells us she’s from an “itty-bitty town” where the type of music played is “country, country and country. But I play indie-rock, so it made quite a splash.” Apparently, that’s nothing new for Ellie. Says her mom: “Ellie’s always been different. I don’t think there’s anybody (else) in town who’s got blue hair.” Musically, Ellie says she’s always been in her brother’s shadow; he’s a country musician, of course. She found her musical muse in her fiance, Cody. They formed a band called OneShotEllie and perform every weekend. She says she met Cody while tending bar, and he’s eventually the one who gave her the courage to play her music in public. “We love the same music; that sealed the deal for me,” she says. “If it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t be standing her right now (on The Voice stage).” Ellie says she likes the idea of competing on The Voice because she believes she can be “100 percent herself” on the show.

What the show didn’t show: That “itty-bitty” town is Crandall, Ga. — population 300. Ellie’s brother is Josh and his country band has opened for Willie Nelson and Luke Bryan. But back to Ellie, who caused quite the sensation with her blind audition. The song was easily the top-performing among the night two audition songs, landing in the top five on iTunes’ alternative chart.

“I’ve loved that song — the Ella Eyre version — for a long time,” Ellie said in a conference call with the media. “Ella is a huge inspiration on me … And I’ve been covering that song for quite some time and it just seemed kind of fitting because I love kind of like sad and depressing music and I like to make people cry when I sing and that was like the song where I felt like I could give them some emotion with it.

According to The Voice website, Ellie started playing piano at age 5 and moved to Calhoun — population 15,000 — to find greater acceptance for her music. Oh, and Ellie also explained the name OneShotEllie in the conference call. “I quit my job to do music full time two years ago and I went from making, you know, $60,000 a year to gigging for $100 . And I told myself I’d give myself one shot to do it and I gave myself a timeline of like three months and if I hadn’t gained any ground, then I was going to go back to work in retail. So OneShotEllie just kind of stuck because the people at the bar started calling me that.” You won’t find any OneShotEllie originals on her YouTube channel, but you can check out three songs on ReverbNation. And, guess what? They’re very good.

For links to more bios of Season 9 artists on The Voice, head here.

On iTunes: Just her performances from The Voice.

Update:
Battle round: Defeated Tim Atlas singing “Sweater Weather.” The song hit #171 on the iTunes’s singles chart, the seventh best of the battle round. Tim was stolen by Pharrell Williams.
Knockout round: She sang “Cool for the Summer” and lost to Braiden Sunshine.
Top 24: She was invited back to participate in Top 24 night by Gwen Stefani. She performed “Ex’s and Oh’s.” The song hit number 43 on the iTunes Top 200, 10th best of the night. But Ellie was eliminated again when Jeffery Austin and Braiden Sunshine were voted into the finals and Korin Bukowski got the Team Gwen save.

Keeping up with Ellie:
Facebook
YouTube
Twitter: @iamelliemusic

Ellie has only one video posted on her YouTube channel, but you can check out several more covers here.

Unsteady (cover)

Drop the Game (cover)

Blind audition — We Don’t Have to Take Our Clothes Off