Idol Chatter & Voice Views

Taylor Beckham is the young lady we met in the third audition episode who once trained to be an Olympic gymnast.

Was she serious about it?

Oh, yeah. She says gymnastics was pretty much her full-time job from age 6 to age 12.

But when she decided to change course, it was natural that she turned to music.

In a post-audition interview, the 17-year-old from Dallas said she grew up in a very Christian family and had been singing in church every Wednesday and Sunday since she was little.

And so the violin lessons she started taking after she quit gymnastics grew into a full-blown desire to pursue a career in music.

Now she says she sings R&B with some jazz and pop mixed in. And, in addition to violin, she plays guitar and piano and writes her own music.

On The Voice, she auditioned with “I’m Going Down” and wound up having to choose between the two new coaches — Shakira and Usher.

She says she selected Usher because of the R&B connection.

She said she picked The Voice as a platform because it’s her favorite show on television and she decided this was the year she was ready to step into such a limelight.

Not that the blind audition was a piece of cake. Not by any stretch.

On the show, she called it the “more intimidating” than any gymnastics match she’d ever performed in, a sentiment she repeated in her post-audition interview.

“For my audition, all insanity broke loose,” she says, smiling. “I’m pretty sure they had somebody behind me the whole time, trash can nearby. I was green (with nerves).

“But those doors open and it clicked,” Taylor added. “What else could you ask for? It was like Christmas.”

On Twitter, Taylor is @taybeckham. In addition to a Facebook page, she also has a website, plus a Chinese website as well.

Now, here are two pre-Voice performances from Taylor.

Update: Taylor lost to Jess Kellner in the battle round when they performed “Can’t Help Falling in Love.” But she was stolen and joined Team Blake. In the knockout round, she performed Rihanna’s “Russian Roulette” and lost to Danielle Bradbery, who performed “Jesus, Take the Wheel.”

“Happy” (an original)

Covering “Prelude to a Kiss” by Alicia Keys