Idol Chatter & Voice Views

Her audition: Morgan Frazier, 22, of Nashville, Tenn., auditioned with a country version of the Cheap Trick hit “I Want You to Want Me.” Gwen Stefani turned around one line into the song. At the last second, Blake Shelton turned around as well. Blake complimented her on displaying a fragile, yet powerful voice. Morgan joined Team Blake.

Her background: A native of Texas, Morgan says her musical journey started when she performed “When You Say Nothing at All” at a local talent show. At age 9, she announced to her parents that she wanted to make a CD. For about two years, she and her father toured doing shows and selling the CD. “I would go door-to-door, and I sold 30,000 copies because I don’t think they could resist a little girl in a cowboy hat,” Morgan recalls. At 16, she got a manager in Nashville and began staying there without her parents. The manager didn’t work out, but she’s still playing shows two nights a week and is looking for a break while competing with all the other talent in Nashville for attention.

What the show didn’t show: In her artist bio on CMT.com — yep, she has one — she says that talent show performance was a disaster. She was used to singing acapella in church. For the talent show, she was expected to sing to a backing track, but wasn’t certain how. “I got up there and I got off the beat of the music … so I performed with my head down the whole time. When I got off stage, I told my mom, ‘I’m never, ever singing again.’” But you know what? She still won a People’s Choice award for the performance.

She’s also released more music than just that CD at age 9. In October 2013, she put out a self-titled EP and turned two impressive songs — “Yellow Brick Road” and “Hey Bully” — into videos. You can watch those below. She also had one of the largest pre-show followings on social media — 15,000 fans on Facebook and 5,000 followers on Twitter before the blind auditions began airing.

Morgan says her country music influences include classic artists like Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn and Hank Williams Sr. But she also listened to the music her dad loved — AC/DC, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin. “A pretty wide spread of music, I think,” she writes on her Facebook page. And maybe that’s why to me, a good song is … well … a good song.”

In a conference call with the media, Morgan said she came up with the version of the Cheap Trick song she did on the show about four years ago. And here’s the strange thing: While watching The Voice last season, she says she had a dream about performing “I Want You to Want Me” on that stage.

“I didn’t even know I was going to, like, try out or anything like that,” she said. “And I had a dream about doing it on the show. And then when that song got picked, I was like, “It’s a risk,” but I couldn’t have been happier.” And that was before the song turned out to be the most successful from night three of the blind auditions on iTunes, cracking the Top 20 on iTunes’ country singles chart.

I’ll be posting profile blogs on every singer who lands a spot on Season 9 of The Voice. For links to the others, head here. Keep checking back. There are many more to come.

On iTunes: That self-titled five-track EP from 2013.

Update:
Battle round: Lost to Emily Ann Roberts, singing “That Kind of Girl,” but was stolen by Pharrell Williams.
Knockout round: She performed “Even If It Breaks Your Heart” by the Eli Young Band, and lost to Darius Scott. But she was stolen for the second time, rejoining Team Blake.
Top 24: She performed “Lips of an Angel” and hit number on the iTunes Top 200. She was eliminated when Barrett Baber and Zach Sebaugh were voted into the Top 12 and Emily Ann Roberts got the Team Blake save.

Keeping up with Morgan:
Facebook
YouTube
Twitter: @_MorganFrazier

Blind audition — “I Want You to Want Me”

Battle Round — “I’m That Kind of Girl”

Knockout Round — “Even If It Breaks Your Heart”

Hey, Bully (from 2013 EP)

Yellow Brick Road (from 2013 EP)

Here for the Party (live cover)