Idol Chatter & Voice Views

Her audition: Cassandra Robertson, 48, of Dallas, Texas, auditioned with Ella Henderson’s “Ghost” and landed a spot on Team Adam. Her audition was part of a montage package, but we heard Adam Levine tell her she had too great a voice not to earn a spot on the show.

Her background: The Voice website says Cassandra’s parents were gospel singers and she would perform with her 11 siblings as part of “The Cleveland Clan.” She left the family band to focus on raising her son, but still tried to work as a musician whenever she could. She sang background for stars like Michael Bolton, Celine Dion, Barry Manilow and Patti LaBelle, but found it difficult to juggle family and singing. So she started a catering business and did vocal coaching on the side. The bio says she sees The Voice as her last shot at her dream of becoming a solo artist.

What the show didn’t show: In a conference call with the media, Cassandra described herself as a person “of very strong faith” and said she picked the song “Ghost” for her blind audition — complete with the chorus line of “I keep going to the river to pray” — because of health problems her husband went through, including a couple of open heart surgeries and kidney cancer. “I hate that you guys didn’t get a chance to see the whole thing, but it was just really full of a lot of passion, a lot of the emotion,” she said.

Her husband has recovered; she said she’s “fortunate and blessed” that he was able to be there with her at the blind audition. She said her first choice for a coach would have been Blake, but she’s thrilled to land on Team Adam because he would have been her second choice and she’s always been drawn “to his voice and just the level of vocal expertise with which he conducts himself. He gave me a huge compliment. He said that he felt that I could actually teach him something. He said that he could hear that I’ve been singing for a very long time which I have.”

In fact, Cassandra says she most recently worked as a worship pastor “at a couple of very, large mega ministries and mega churches.” “Currently I’m not doing that,” she added, “because I really wanted to just really sink my teeth into music and really pour myself into developing myself as a true artist — not as a background singer, not as a vocal coach — but just really as a true artist.” She says that’s been her focus for the past couple of years.

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: Just Cassandra’s performances from The Voice.

Update:
Battle round: Lost to Viktor Kiraly singing “Nobody Knows” and was eliminated. The song hit #198 on the iTunes’s singles chart, the ninth best of the battle round.

Keeping up with Cassandra:
Facebook
Twitter: @CassandraMusic

“Don’t Worry” (with Ben Tankard)

“Forever and a Day” (with Tom Braxton)

Her blind audition song — “Ghost”