Holly Tucker

Holly Tucker already had an impressively eventful career in music before she gained nationwide fame as a contestant on the televised singing competition The Voice at the tender age of 20. Born in Waco, Texas in 1993, Tucker was part of a musical family; her parents were both members of a Christian music group called Revised Edition when they were in college, and spent several years on the road sharing their music and testimony before settling down in Texas to raise a family. Young Holly displayed a fondness for music at a young age, and made her first public appearance singing in church when she was seven. At the age of 12, Tucker began performing at churches and talent shows in Texas and Louisiana with the support of her parents — in addition to singing, Tucker played piano, guitar, and alto sax — and in 2007, 14-year-old Tucker cut a full-length album, It's About Time, that she sold at her live shows. A four-song demo, For You, appeared the following year, and in 2011, she released her second full-length album, Love Is What She Likes; the album and her live appearances helped Tucker win honors as 2011's Solo/Duo Act of the Year and Female Vocalist of the Year from the Music Association of Central Texas. After enrolling at Baylor University (where she played saxophone in the marching band as well as studying Speech Communications and Spanish), Tucker began working with a student-run record label, Uproar Records, who released a three-song EP by Holly, 2012's Something to Be Said. Later that same year, Tucker was in Dallas for a singing engagement when she learned that auditions were being held in town for the music competition show The Voice; she did well at the open call and was invited to participate in the main competition in Los Angeles, where her interpretation of Garth Brooks' "To Make You Feel My Love" got an enthusiastic response from the celebrity judges. Signing on with Blake Shelton as her coach, Tucker wowed audiences with her performance of the classic hymn "How Great Thou Art," which made Billboard's Country and Heatseekers charts, while her version of "Done" (a hit for the Band Perry) also hit the country chart. Tucker made it to the top six on The Voice but was voted out of the lineup on June 14, 2013. Afterwards, Tucker told reporters, "My time on The Voice was an incredible chapter in my life. It opened my eyes as an artist, gave me more confidence to take the stage, and propelled me further down the road to becoming the country music artist I have been pursuing for much of my life." Tucker continued to maintain a busy schedule as a live performer, and in November 2013, she released a Christmas-themed single, "About a Baby."