Blake Shelton, who produced the last three consecutive winners on “The Voice,” is cut out of this year’s competition after the last remaining act on his team, the big bearded Cole Volsbury, was voted out on Tuesday’s results show.
After singing Billy Joel’s “Shameless” that Garth Brooks made a hit. Volsbury was also showless and both his mentor Shelton and Cee Lo Green, who came over to his side after he lost all his singers, were left with no one to back.
If it’s any consolation, Shelton won four American Country Awards in the Fox telecast opposite his show on NBC.
It was one of two eliminations Tuesday, preparing for next week’s three singer finale.
At the top of the show, it was James Wolpert, one of two guys in glasses, who was let go. He’d been in the bottom before and Shelton, for one, thought his version of U2’s “With or Without You” Monday was enough to get him out of the hole. It wasn’t and we’re now without him. It was, amazingly, the first loss from Adam Levine’s team since the Top 12.
Levine goes into next week’s finale with two of the three finalists — Tessanne Chin and Will Champlin. And Christina Aguilera has a strong act in the race in teenage powerhouse Jacquie Lee.
With Wolpert still dealing with personality issues (that he smiled for the first time this week and lost his glasses were seen as big advances), it seems likely a woman will win “The Voice” for the third year in a row.
Tessanne’s version of “Bridge Over Troubled Water” Monday was called perfect by her judge; Jacquie Lee wowed with a version of Sarah McLachlan’s “Angel.”
Wolpert’s steadier pace was indicated by the title of his fun. cover, “Carry On.”
As if to indicate the star power of recent seasons, the past two winners of “The Voice” came to perform, Cassadee Pope and Danielle Bradberry, both singing in a twangy pop style that’s found a home on country charts.
Two other acts that filled out the top three last season also returned to perform — that girl with big glasses Michelle Chamuel and those middling county kin the Swon Brothers, who finished second and third respectively.
That meant the finalists could rest up for the vocal gymnastics of the finale next week.