How Barry Jean Fontenot’s “Soul Came Through” Battles to Get Him a Steal & Save
Barry Jean Fontenot is emerging as a fan-favorite Artist on The Voice.
Barry Jean Fontenot felt the pressure during his Battle round on Season 27 of The Voice. The Artist, who has recently made ends meet as a substitute teacher at a trade school, mentioned that his career on The Voice would help him "validate his choices since leaving law school," so he had quite a lot to prove. Here's what happened:
Barry Jean Fontenot got vocal coaching from Cynthia Erivo on The Voice Battles
Fontenot was paired with Kaiya Hamilton to sing "Cry to Me" by Solomon Burke, and got extra help from Coach Michael Bublé and Battle Advisor Cynthia Erivo. When Fontenot was struggling with high notes, Erivo advised him not to go into his falsetto but to move the sound to the front of his mouth and stay in his "head voice." The wider Fontenot could open his mouth, the better he sounded.
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After his and Hamilton's performance, all four Coaches had plenty of praise to go around. "Barry, your range is really remarkable," said John Legend, adding, "Your voice sounded really powerful."
Adam Levine was impressed by Fontenot's likability, telling him, "Barry, you're like, this warm energy...you really have a beautiful gift in your tone." He also noted that during the song, Fontenot found himself slightly blocking Hamilton, and did "the sweetest thing" in quickly moving out of her way.
The only issue any of them found was a slight lack of confidence, with Levine saying that he wants to "unlock Barry," and Kelsea Ballerini adding, "Your soul comes through when you sing [but] you have to buy into it."
Bublé chose Hamilton as the winner of the battle, but as Fontenot walked off the stage, Ballerini smashed her Steal button, followed by Bublé with the Save. "You are not going anywhere, young man," said Host Carson Daly.
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"He just let you go. Like, duh!" Ballerini said in her pitch to Fontenot, telling him, "I want to help cultivate that [soul] in you, and confidence." Bublé's pitch was simple: "I hope that in the time we’ve spent together I’ve shown you who I am. And that’s it."
This worked, and Fontenot stayed with Bublé, who said the Artist reminded him of the great Sam Cooke. More Barry Jean to come!
You can watch The Voice Season 27 on Mondays at 8/7c on NBC. New episodes are available to stream the next day on Peacock.
