Idol Chatter & Voice Views

Her audition: Holly Henry, 19, of Minneapolis, auditioned with Coldplay’s “The Scientist.” Blake Shelton turned around in a heartbeat. By the end of the song, so had the other three judges, making Holly one of only two singers to earn a four-chair turn-around on the second night of auditions. Her genuinely awestruck reaction to that reception provided an endearing moment early on in Season 5.

Her background: Holly told The Voice she went to the University of Minnesota after high school, but had to drop out because she couldn’t afford it and wound up taking a job in a pancake house. Musically, she plays the guitar, ukulele, piano and banjo. “I write music,” she said, “but it’s more of a personal thing. As a musician, I don’t perform for anyone.” She said trying out for The Voice was her parents’ idea. “I thought it would be fun, but very scary.”

On picking Blake: Holly told TwinCities.com she chose Blake because he was the first to spin his chair. “He turned in a second,” she said. “Obviously, he heard something he liked and I thought I owed him after he turned around so quickly. He put all his faith in me with just one note.”

What the show didn’t show: On Facebook, Holly describes herself as “acoustic/folk/alternative/blonde girl with a weird voice who plays instruments moderately well.” But she’s got a sense of humor. In the description under her cover of “House of the Rising Sun,” she writes that her dad told her she turned the song into “a creepy death march.” In the twincities.com piece, she credits her dad, Marc, also a musician, for being “so supportive” and says she has about “2 percent experience” because she has played live at a sandwich shop back home. Holly hasn’t put any of her music on iTunes, but she does has a song called “Katie” available for download at bandcamp.com.

Quote: “That was incredibly frightening,” she said of her audition during a conference call the day after it aired. “I have anxiety in general, so that big of a crowd was overwhelming. But, at the same time, once I get up there and I start to sing, all that kind of fades away because it’s just a really beautiful moment, you know?”

On iTunes: Just her Voice performance, which cracked the top 25 on iTunes downloads chart, making it the most successful among night two auditioners.

Keeping up with Holly: On Twitter — @hollymaehenry — Facebook — YouTube.

Holly Henry, “House of the Rising Sun”

Holly Henry, “Seven Nation Army”