Idol Chatter & Voice Views

Her audition: Bay Brooks, 18, of Valdosta, Ga., sang “All of the Stars” by Ed Sheeran in a blind audition that was part of a montage. She landed on Team Blake Shelton.

Her background: You’re not going to read this too often. The Voice website tells us this aspiring singer is known as a goat-tying champion back home. But she’s always enjoyed singing and it helped her cope when her uncle died and her mom was diagnosed with cancer in the same year. Her mom recovered and they moved to Nashville so Bay could better pursue a career in music.

What the show didn’t show: In her Voice video, Bay says she doesn’t remember a time “growing up when there hasn’t been some kind of music in my life.” Anytime she has struggled, she has turned to music to cope. “So I want to make music and to be someone that inspires people the same way artists and music has inspired me.” She’s off to a good start. According to her website, she’s made two trips to the Hope for Life Children’s Home orphanage in Haiti “where she’s had the opportunity to do what she loves: play music, connect with others, and perform to raise funds to support orphanages.” And the move to Nashville is fairly recent because her hometown newspaper reports that she attended Valdosta High School before enrolling in Georgia’s virtual school as a senior. Her Facebook bio calls her a free-spirited, indie-folk, singer-songwriter. And she’s adopted a logo, two lowercase b’s inside a circle. You have to love what she writes about that on her website. It goes like this: “I use the lowercase B’s because I want to make a point that I’m smaller in importance than others. I use a vintage typewriter font because I’m very old fashioned and have an old soul. I like to tilt the logo as if to look like a brand because the world is going to brand you if you don’t brand yourself! The color is my favorite shade of blue-like the ocean. My initials sit within a circle to signify the world ’cause we’re all in this together!!”

On being on Team Blake: “I’m so excited to be on Blake’s team. Blake is just the coolest. I feel like he’s that uncle everybody loves. You can tell every minute you spend with him he’s genuine.”

On iTunes: Just her audition song, but her Website includes a lovely sounding ballad called “Dear True Love,” a song by Ryan O’Neal that she recorded for a close friend’s wedding (listen below).

Update: In the battle round, she was matched against Brooke Adee. They sang Taylor Swift’s “Style.” Blake declared Brooke the winner; Bay was eliminated from the show.

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Twitter: @baybrooksmusic