By RODNEY HO/ rho@ajc.com, originally filed Monday, November 9, 2015
Three metro Atlantans have made the top 24 on "The Voice" as the ninth season enters the live rounds this week: potential pop star Riley Biederer (Team Pharrell), country singer Zach Seabaugh (Team Blake) and R&B songstress Regina Love (Team Gwen).
Love performed Adele's "Hello" Monday night, but received mixed reviews on a very challenging song. Biederer and Seabaugh are set to go live Tuesday night. The top 12 will be selected on Wednesday, three from each team.
Here's a quick look at each of them:
Riley (Team Pharrell)
The Atlanta 19-year-old veteran singer who worked with Elton John has built a strong social media presence that she hopes she can leverage on the live show. "I can really involve all my followers," she said. "Some people have been following me for five years." (She has 35K Instagram followers, 12,700 Twitter followers and 73,000 likes on her Facebook page and 260,000 subscribers on YouTube.)
She started on Team Pharrell Williams, was "stolen" during the battle round to Team Gwen Stefani, then lost again during the knockout round, only to be brought back to Pharrell's team. She said she has been able to get quality time with two judges instead of one. And she really appreciated Gwen's fashion sense and having Rihanna as a mentor didn't hurt.
"During the knockouts," she said, "I think that my outfit changed seven times." Then Rihanna and Gwen helped her. This was followed by a statement she never thought she'd ever say: "Rihanna gave me make-up tips."
She hopes she'll have a couple of "moments" on the live stage. And then we reminisced about her love for "American Idol." In her youth (seven years ago!), she text voted for David Archuleta and then Brooke White a year later.
Here's Riley's live knockout version of "XO."
UPDATE: Wednesday November 11: Here's her first round live take on Tori Kelly's "Should've Been Us." MJ liked her performance but it didn't move at all on the charts. She doesn't think Riley will make the cut but we'll see if her social media fans can save her:
Zach (Team Blake Shelton)
The Kennesaw Mountain High School 17 year old is definitely an underdog here simply because he has relatively little experience in the business. But so far, he managed to beat two singers with more experience than him in the music world, people he learned from during rehearsals.
"The intensity has picked up," Zach said in an interview last week. "Seeing people go home, it gave me a wake-up call to work even harder." At the same time, victories have "given me more confidence, that Blake believes in me."
For the battle rounds, he was psyched to cover a Travis Tritt song. It was a coincidence given that Tritt grew up not far from where Zach lives in Marietta. "After the performance, Travis contacted me on Twitter. It was really cool that he noticed me!"
He said he hopes to connect with the live audiences Tuesday. And he jokingly hopes he doesn't repeat what happened in seventh grade on stage when he fell off the stage. "I'm going to try not to fall on live TV," he said, with a laugh.
Here's Zach's recorded version of "Somebody's Heartbreak," which Zach considered a major vocal challenge. "It took some time for me to get used to it and I practiced a lot," he said. "It paid off."
UPDATE Wednesday, November 11: His cover of Steve Holy's 2006 song "Brand New Girlfriend," channeling his inner Elvis. Apparently, this song shot up the iTunes charts, a good sign that he'll survive tonight.
Regina (Team Gwen)
She is definitely the matriarch of the group at age 51. She is also over the moon making it to the live rounds, in an interview before her performance Monday.
"I'm on Cloud 59!" she said. "I just added 50 more to it!"
Love, who has done some acting, said she is thrilled to be able to make an impact on viewers' lives, that dreams can and will come true. "Please never give up," she said. "That's why I'm here. I'm not just fighting for myself but for people like me who thought their life was over because of a certain age or looked different."
She has already been recognized, even in places she never expected, including a tiny restaurant in Loganville. "I didn't have any makeup on," she said. "It was amazing." She's had people come up to her crying, saying how much she inspired them.
Here's Regina's knockout "Midnight Train to Georgia." "I really wanted to pay homage to the people that have paved the way for someone like myself," she said.
And her "Hello"
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