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When Tanner Linford auditioned for "The Voice" last season, none of the judges turned around to claim him for their team.
But the 17-year-old Kaysville singer tried, tried again, and this season he got a judge to turn that chair around. Just barely.
Linford was singing the last note of "When You Say Nothing at All" in an episode this week when Blake Shelton punched the button, signaling he'd chosen the Utah teen to join his team on the hit NBC singing competition. And Linford's look of relief was priceless.
"That was the craziest thing in the world for me," he said in a telephone interview with The Salt Lake Tribune. "I went from a state of total despair to complete and utter giddy happiness. Really a bizarre emotional experience, but one of the greatest things that's ever happened to me."
Although he wasn't selected for the winter 2014 season of the NBC singing competition, the judges encouraged Linford to work on his performance and return for another try. Which wasn't quite as easy as he thought it would be.
"I thought that I was going to be less nervous," he said. "I felt like I had come a long way since last time as far as confidence and everything. … But then when I actually got on the stage and I saw the backs of those chairs again, all the memories started coming back. The fears and doubts started settling in."
He said he was "pretty shaky" as he began singing but "as the song went on, I got a little more control of myself. And I just tried to pour my soul into it at the end there."
It was enough to catch Shelton's attention. And, once the country-music star turned around, he knew he'd seen Linford before.
"I love you! I love you! I know you!" Shelton said. "I thought you did a great job, man. Just awesome control. Great pitch. And you're meant to be on Team Blake."
Judge Adam Levine also remembered the Utah teen. "The improvement was really noteworthy. There's so much potential."
"That was nice," Linford said. "They've seen so many contestants go through this show since me, it was really nice that they even remembered my face."
But for the second time at the blind auditions, the judges mistook his relatively high voice for that of a girl.
"I've, obviously, never really thought about that," Linford said. "That's probably partly because I know I'm a dude. But it was really funny hearing that from them."
But he has heard it before, including from some people who heard him rehearsing before he faced the blind audition in Season 6 of "The Voice."
"I don't know what kind of weird girl they were picturing in their minds," Linford said. "But the comment really doesn't bother me much because Adam [Levine] and [fellow judge] Pharrell have been told the same thing and they're both amazing artists."
And Levine left Linford with this thought: "Remember what else I told you? Ladies love the high voices."
Twitter: @ScottDPierce —
On TV
P "The Voice" airs Mondays and Tuesdays at 7 p.m. on NBC/Ch. 5. Utahn Tanner Linford's next appearance has not yet been scheduled.