Follow your Bliss: 61-year-old ‘Voice’ contestant wants to ‘inspire the older folks to keep living, keep dreaming”
It was a bit odd that 52-year-old Snoop Dogg said this singer only nine years his senior reminded him of his mom and aunt, but at least Gail Bliss ended up on a team.
As The Voice Blind Auditions continued apace this week, 61-year-old Gail Bliss proudly became the oldest contestant of Season 26, as well as one of the oldest contestants to ever make it onto the show, surpassing previous singers like Season 11’s Dan Shafer and Season 21’s Wendy Moten (who were both 57 at the time of their auditions). A showbiz veteran who’s performed on Broadway and at the Grand Ole Opry and played Patsy Cline for 30 years in a touring theatrical production of A Closer Walk with Patsy Cline, Gail revealed that when she turned 60 she wrote out a bucket list of life goals that included “Audition for The Voice.” She declared, “If nothing else, I want to inspire the older folks to keep living, keep dreaming, keep having fun.”
Gail’s audition was definitely inspiring to viewers of all ages, so that mission was accomplished as Bliss followed her bliss. But I was flabbergasted when her big, growly voice, prominent vibrato and yodel, and sassy personality on the SteelDrivers’ “If It Hadn’t Been for Love” didn’t turn even one chair. Snoop Dogg had seemed so close — he was clearly all riled up about this feisty filly, bouncing up and down in this red chair with his hand just an inch from his red button. But he psyched himself out while watching and waiting to see what the panel’s resident country expert, Reba McEntire, would do (shockingly, Reba did not spin around), and then it was too late.
Or… was it?
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