Viewers voted Tuesday to send both singers on to the next round in the TV reality show after Fredericks soared up the charts with a May Erlewine song and Davis scored big with The Beatles.
Throughout his exhilarating voyage on “The Voice,” Traverse City singer-songwriter Joshua Davis has raved about Michigan’s uber-talented music scene and credited that supportive community for bolstering his career.
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So it’s no surprise that Davis returned the favor by encouraging fellow competitor Sawyer Fredericks to pursue selection of a powerful song by a member of Michigan’s folk royalty, friend and Earthwork Music label-mate May Erlewine, for this week’s live performance segment of the popular NBC reality show.
As it turns out, both singers earned warm, deservedly enthusiastic receptions for their performances this week: Both are part of the Top Five and will move on to the next round of competition based on voting from viewers as revealed by “The Voice” Tuesday night.
Fredericks’ emotion-drenched rendition of Erlewine’s uplifting “Shine On” – a tribute to his mother, Kirsten, who was in the audience for Monday’s performance – stands out definitively as the unmatched climactic high point of the eighth season of “The Voice.”
Critics overwhelmingly praised the young New York singer’s performance, and the song soared Tuesday afternoon to as high as No. 3 on the iTunes singles chart, just behind Britney Spears & Iggy Azalea and ahead of established stars such as Jason Derulo, David Guetta and Little Big Town. It was No. 1 on the rock chart. Not surprisingly, he was the first to be “saved by America” during Tuesday’s show.
BECOMING A NATIONAL HIT AND BOOSTING LOCAL SALES, TOO
Relatively unknown beyond Michigan’s borders, the song written by Erlewine in 2004 has now become a national hit, after Fredericks convinced the show to allow him to perform the song by an independent artist because it was a favorite of his mother and a tune he’d first heard as a child. (Read more about the song in this Local Spins story.)
“It’s mind-blowing,” Erlewine told Local Spins on Tuesday. “I feel grateful, a bit shocked really.” The attention placed on the song also boosted sales for Erlewine’s version of the tune on Tuesday, though she couldn’t cite specific numbers. (It’s available online at earthworkmusic.com.)
Davis – who said he was “thrilled that such a beautiful and important song” by Erlewine had reached a national TV audience – was no slouch in the fan-reaction department either: His rendition of The Beatles’ “In My Life,” which he sang in tribute to his wife, Ann, ranked third among this week’s performers based on iTunes sales, behind only Fredericks and contestant Meghan Linsey.
On Tuesday afternoon, the song had risen briefly to No. 13 on the overall singles chart (ahead of Mark Ronson/Bruno Mars and Meghan Trainor) and was No. 3 on the rock chart.
“My family is the most important thing to me and being apart from them has been the hardest thing,” Davis said in talking about dedicating “In My Life” to his wife. He added that he wanted to “make that time away from them worth it” by putting everything into his performance. (Watch the video below.)
It paid off with the judges and voters.
“That performance was absolutely mesmerizing, every second of it. Everything about it was flawless,” raved Adam Levine, who also called Davis “a class act.” Davis was the last of four contestants saved by viewer voting Tuesday (along with Fredericks, Meghan Linsey and Koryn Hawthorne). India Carney moved on through an “instant save” at the end of the show.
Davis’ other selection, a version of U2’s “Desire,” clocked in at No. 65 overall Tuesday on iTunes. Of performing that song, he said he wanted to make team leader Adam Levine proud, his family proud and his “home state proud.”
Mission accomplished, Josh.
VIDEO: Joshua Davis, “In My Life”
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