Idol Chatter & Voice Views

Kristi Hoopes is one of the contestants we’ll meet on Season 13 of The Voice

She was in third grade when auditions were being held for “A Christmas Carol.” No boys auditioned, so she snagged the lead role of Ebeneezer Scrooge.

“I got the lead wearing a bald cap and grey sideburns,” she told A.V.A. Live Radio. “I looked absolutely ridiculous, but I loved it anyway.”

Next, her teacher suggested she try the school talent show. Kristi did the Loretta Lynn version of “These Boots Are Made for Walking.” And an aspiring country singer was born.

Not that she was raised on country music, mind you. Kristi, now 19, says her mother listened to contemporary pop and her dad was a fan of soft rock and jazz.

But Kristi felt most comfortable singing country music and eventually began writing her own songs as well. She wound up winning a number of honors — including Entertainer of the Year and Songwriter of the Year — through the Colorado Country Music Association and the North American Country Music Association International.

Another competition, a songwriting contest sponsored by Lyricord resulted in Kristi recording her first single, “At Least It’s Something,” when she was just 16.

The song, she told TeensWannaKnow.com, “was inspired by a combination of my failed attempts at love. But when I finished writing the song, I realized that it was more than just a song about love gone wrong. ‘At Least It’s Something’ speaks to anyone who has ever lost somebody they loved, and feeling the pain of trying to hold onto the memories you had with them.”

For a while, Kristi admits, it seemed like all the songs she wrote were about love gone wrong. It reached the point where the young lady from Parker, Colo., was dubbed “the heartbreak kid,” she admits.

But she wound up recording a much more upbeat — not to mention very catchy — song called “In My Own Sweet Time” a year later.

And she gained her most acclaim from a cover of Dierks Bentley’s “Different for Girls.” Bentley’s reaction on social media: “Whoa!” Her video for the song has now been moved more than 600,000 times, according to Kristi’s website bio.

Oh, and judging from her Twitter account, Kristi has given herself a new nickname — Hippie Chick with Twang.

Judging from the banner on that Twitter account, we’ll meet her on Season 13 of The Voice.

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Twitter: @KristiHoopes
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The Voice has done it again, rounding up an impressive array of talent for Season 13. Keep checking back for more profiles of the contestants we’ll meet when the blind auditions begin Sept. 25 on NBC. And for complete coverage of The Voice once Season 13 begins.