"The Voice"

Jared Blake.
Jared Blake is from Nashville, Tennessee, and the world of country music and Southern rock better watch out for this one!
People tend to jump to conclusions when they first see Jared, complete with tattoos, shaved head and ripped jeans.  However, A dedicated father of three little girls and one son, Jared’s tough guy image softens between the letters of his lyrics.  The coolest thing about Jared Blake is that although he’s had his share of hard knocks, when he performs everything seems so natural  and he’s there completely.

Will a southern rock singer be the winner, "The Voice", of season 1 of The Voice? 

You'll have to watch and see!

Sonia Rao.
Sonia Rao is a beautiful singer with a pleasantly warm voice.  She was born and raised in Freehold, New Jersey, and currently lives in San Francisco, California. She lived and studied at the University of California at Berkeley, and composes her songs in what she calls a "little multicolored room."
A classical violinist, Sonia works to implement her instrument with blues and country music, and putting her songs out there for the world to love or hate.
According to Sonia Rao herself, she is a singer, songwriter, and word-lover, translating what she sees in this world into songs.
From the information provided at one of her websites, Sonia has strong family values and has been performing live for about 2 years.

Sonia is among a number of gifted and qualified contestants that will be performing on The View.
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NBC is challenging Fox as they step into the genre of American Idol with their new television series "The Voice."  As with Idol, it's a singing competition, however "The Voice" will be focusing on contestant's actual voices rather than what they look like.
Celebrities Christina Aguilera, Adam Levine, Cee Lo Green and Blake Shelton are the new shows four musician coaches.

A 12-minute sneak peek featuring the celebrities is to air on Thursday, April 21, 2011 at 11:35-11:47 p.m. (EST) prior to "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno." The celebrity musicians will also be performing Green's hit "Crazy."

NBC will also feature two-minute clips as the four celebrity coaches come together to perform on Saturday, April 23, 2011 at 11:30 p.m. right before Saturday Night Live.

Fans of late night television will not miss a minute of either shows as NBC is extending the time slots.  "SNL"  will end at 1:02 (EST) for example.

American Idol is in jeopardy of future seasons according to Cee Lo Green. "Quite honestly, I felt like American Idol and these other entities had run their course," said Green.

"The Voice" hosted by Carson Daly, premieres Tuesday, April 26 at 9 p.m. (EST)

Many people are wondering what "The Voice" is all about, and how it differentiates from American Idol.
To get a better understanding of how The Voice works the format goes something like this:

Essentially the show features three stages of competition:

• The Blind Audition
• The Battle Phase
• The Live Performance

The Blind Audition
In preparation for the blind auditions The Voice's casting team has been diligently working with music industry professionals, searching the Unites States for contestants to appear for the blind audition process in this latest new singing competition.
The blind audition process is where contestants sing before the four musician coaches: Christina Aguilera, Cee Lo Green, Adam Levine and Blake Shelton.  However, unlike American Idol, the four coaches face away from the contestants while they perform.  This way the coaches do not judge the contestants by their clothing, hairstyle, or the image they portray.
When a contestant is auditioning and one or more of the coaches have a desire to work with the contestant, the coach pushes a button and their chair rotates around to face the contestant.  In the event that more than one coach desires to work with a contestant, the contestant makes the ultimate decision of what coach they wish to work with throughout the singing competition.  Ultimately each coach will acquire a team of contestants.

The Battle Phase
Once the four teams are set each coach will dedicate themselves to their respective team members by offering their professional advise and experience to develop the singers in preparation of the live performance.  However, before the live performance and during the battle rounds, each coach will set a face-off between two of their own team members in which the two contestants will both sing the same song together in front of the studio audience.  After the face-off each team coach will chose which singers will advance to the live performance.
At the conclusion of the battle episodes, only the best contestants of each coach's roster remain and will proceed to the live stage performances.

The Live Performance
In this final "live performance" phase of The Voice singing competition, the top contestants from each team must compete against each other during a live broadcast. During this final performance the television audience will vote to save one contestant on each of the four teams, with the coach ultimately deciding which member they want to save. Ultimately each coach will have his/her best contestant left standing to compete in the finale. Finally, from these final four contestants, one will be voted "The Voice"!

The winner will receive the grand prize of a recording contract and $100,000.