Meet Tarra Layne of The Voice Season 11

The Voice

October 8, 2016 By Mark Franklin 0

Tarra Layne of The Voice Season 11 (NBC Photo)

Blind audition: Tara Layne, 30, sang Black Velvet by Alannah Myles and landed a spot on Team Blake Shelton. Blake complimented her on a shredding rock and roll voice. He was the only coach to turn around for a performance that was montaged, meaning we saw just a few seconds of it.

Her background: According to her bio on The Voice website, Tarra had planned to move to Florida to live with her father and make music, but he passed away as a result of alcoholism before she could make the trip. Inspired by his memory,Tarra relocated to Nashville. She opened for Gavin DeGraw at Webster Hall in New York City in 2012. The following year, she moved to Los Angeles and created her own self-titled band. You can also hear her as Barbie’s singing voice for the song “Strength in Numbers,” which is the theme song for the “Barbie Spy Squad” movie released earlier this year.

What the show didn’t show:
* In an interview earlier this year, she says her biggest influences growing up were Monica, Brandy and Whitney Houston and she would “jam out” to her mom’s Michael Jackson albums. “So I was straight-up R&B,” she says. “But when music comes out (of me) as an artist, it’s total southern rock and blues.”
* Her Mattel gig goes beyond that “Spy Squad” song. She’s also a featured vocalist on the theme song “Shooting Star” in the new “Barbie Starlight Adventure.” And she’s a featured vocalist on “Welcome To Monster High,” which came out in late September. In a Pittsburgh Today interview, Tarra says her singing voice actually comes out of a Monster High doll.
* Don’t let the Mattle gig above fool you, Tarra’s also released a lot of her own music, including an “Introducing Tarra Layne” EP in 2011, a three-track “Yellow Track Sessions” EP in 2013 and a number of cover singles in 2014.
* Then there’s the superb “Once You Go Red” EP that came out last year.She describes “Once You Go Red” this way: “It’s soulful. It’s southern. It’s rock and roll. Period.”
* If people could listen to just one song from that EP, Tarra said she’d want it to be the lead single, “Cherry Moonshine.” “It’s a fun song and I want people to be add that to their party playlists,” she said. “Having listeners enjoy and be inspired by my music in that way is the absolute biggest reward. It shows me I may be doing something right.” I’ve embedded it and “Difference” below. But, really, you need to check out all five songs on that EP. And you can on Tarra’s YouTube channel.
* As a fan of southern rock, she says she’s attended “36 and a half” Allman Brother shows.
* She has a handkerchief she refers to as her “rabbit’s foot” good luck charm. A friend of Tarra’s was throwing out some clothing and Tarra salvaged the handkerchief, which the friend’s uncle wore while touring with Willie Nelson. She wears it as a hair tie on the cover of her latest EP. And she had it wrapped around her left wrist while performing her blind audition song.
* Here’s how she described her audition in a conference call with the media: “It’s one of those things where as artists, we’re hustling, we’re hustling, we’re hustling and then to get an opportunity like this to be on a stage this big with this much exposure is something that really can’t be described to anybody else. It’s absolutely amazing and even just beginning to that point when I walked up on that stage in front of four artists who are extremely accomplished — it’s like a feeling that I thought I would never have ever. I don’t think I’ve ever been so scared to tell you the truth.”
* As for “Black Velvet, her blind audition song — it’s actually one of the first covers she ever recorded. “I think I was like 20 when I first walked into a studio my first time and did a cover of it. And I thought it was really interesting and serendipitous in a way that it was my blind audition song.”
* She’s working on two new EPs, including one which will be “more sentimental, all ballads” about her life experiences over the past six years. She says she’s hoping to release new music in the spring of 2017.