Nashville Songbird Cherie Oakley Competes on ‘The Voice’

NBC's new talent show, 'The Voice,' featuring Blake Shelton as one of the four coaches, along with Cee Lo Green, Adam Levine and Christina Aguilera, is already a huge hit, scoring more than 11 million viewers during its debut on April 26. Country music's own Cherie Oakley, a background vocalist who has toured with Carrie Underwood and Gretchen Wilson and who wrote Reba McEntire's mega-hit, 'Turn On the Radio,' earned a coveted slot on the show. The Nashville native dishes to The Boot about the audition process, what happens behind the scenes, and why she thinks 'The Voice' is the best new talent competition on air.

"There were tons and tons of ways everybody could audition. I auditioned on Skype, which I had never done before," Cherie explains to The Boot. "I had actually gone to the dentist, immediately got home, sat at my computer and sang for them. I was at the cut-off. I had heard about it last-minute, and thought, 'I don't know if I want to do this or not.' I thought about going for 'American Idol' before, but every time I prayed about it, God would shut the door and make it impossible for me to try out. So, after four years of that, you kind of go, 'That's obviously not the path for me, so I'll just try to make it on my own, and try to get a record deal in a different way, try to get exposure in a different way.' So this felt like it fell in my lap really quick."

Cherie says the show executives wasted no time in inviting her to compete on the 'The Voice.' "I got an e-mail the night I auditioned, saying that they were going to fly me to Los Angeles," she recalls. "The next day I got my flight information, and I left the following day. So literally two days after I sang, I was gone!"

The quick trip to the west coast didn't give the Music City resident much time to prepare, which created plenty of last-minute anxiety. "I had no sleep," she continues. "I was really, really nervous. I had focused on songwriting for the last eight months, and I hadn't been performing live. I thought, 'I'm going to get up and perform with these giant scary chairs right in front of me, with this big audience and then millions of viewers!'"

Cherie wasn't the only one who had to scramble with the last-minute travel plans. "They flew everybody's families out, so I had my husband with me, and my mom and my dad," she adds. "We were all up crazy early to get to the studio at seven in the morning. There were tons of other people auditioning with their parents there. I waited about nine hours to perform my audition. I was actually glad I waited that long. I was so nervous when I woke up, that by the time [of my audition], my nerves were completely gone, and I was excited."

Watch Cherie's Blind Audition

Finally, it was her turn to take the stage. "My mom went into the audience," she remembers. "My dad and my husband went to the holding room to watch, and I went back and prayed a good long prayer. At that point, I was so calm and excited, and I was so thankful to be there and have the opportunity to have that exposure. I walked out there feeling like I already won, because I finally got this opportunity to not back somebody up, but to sing by myself on that kind of stage with that type of exposure."

The full impact of the opportunity she was given hit Cherie right before she took the microphone. "It's making me teary eyed, because I've waited a really long time to have my shot, and it means a lot," the emotional performer remarked to the camera. "I love being a background vocalist, but I'd love to prove that I don't need to be in the shadows anymore."

Cherie may have been through intense auditions for Carrie Underwood and Gretchen Wilson, but she says 'The Voice' audition was unlike anything she had experienced. "Nobody announces you, nobody claps for you, there's no music," she recounts of those first few seconds on 'The Voice' stage. "It's dead silence. You walk out and find the little star you stand on. There's four chairs with their backs to you. They were enormous. You're surrounded by this crowd and the band starts playing."

A seasoned performer, the Nashville resident found the challenge of singing to the back of the chairs difficult. "I felt more pressure that their backs were turned, because it was that much more important to sing well. It's hard to do when you're nervous and excited," she admits. "Sometimes that energy can push you to be really pitchy and to rush the tempo. I felt more pressure that they couldn't see me, because I like to smile at people and connect with people. To me, that was scarier."

Singing Miranda Lambert's 'Gunpowder and Lead' for her audition, Cherie says she soon completely forgot about her surroundings and sang her heart out on stage -- until disappointment flooded her as she was finishing the tune. "I got to the last note of my song and I realize I'm going home, because nobody turned around for me," she says. "I'm holding the note out, thinking, 'I got to sing by myself. I got to stand up here and have this exposure.' And then, at the last second of my note, Christina's chair turned around.

"I was in such a daze," she continues. "I couldn't believe anybody's chair turned around, because I felt like it was done. I had already in my mind gone, 'OK, I'm thankful to be here, and what an incredible opportunity.' So when she turned her chair around, I never expected her to be the one to turn around ... I was flabbergasted."

The Grammy-winning pop singer is happy to have Cherie on her team. "Well, obviously I picked you," Christina said after Cherie's gutsy performance. "You were telling the audience to get on up, so I'm interested in seeing what I can do in a different genre."

While Cherie is thrilled with the opportunity, she concedes that she had originally hoped to land on Blake's team and be mentored by a country star. "I hoped Blake would have wanted me to be on his team," she admits. "I'm a country artist. I want to sing country music. So, of course, I'd like to work with the only country person, because you feel like they get you, they get where you're coming from. If not him, I would have loved to have worked with Adam. But Christina, I was shocked by. She talked very openly about how country music is a genre she understands, but she really feels like it's out of her comfort zone. But at the same time, it's really exciting because there's so much I can learn from her. She's been singing since she was 16 years old. She's the biggest star on there, so it's pretty mind-blowing. I definitely have nothing to complain about."

Coincidentally, Cherie came close to working with Christina almost 20 years ago, when Cherie was cast with Christina in the TV series, 'The Mickey Mouse Club,' but decided to focus her energy on a Broadway-bound play instead. They both also competed on the talent series 'Star Search,' with each of them claiming the title of Jr. Vocalist, only one year apart. "I've watched her since way back when. I've followed her career for years," Cherie says of the pop icon. "I think she's amazingly talented."

While Cherie can't reveal what happens in future episodes, she has nothing but praise for her experience. "From an artist's perspective, one thing that separates 'The Voice' from other talent shows is that the people on 'The Voice' don't talk about anybody as contestants," she explains. "They refer to everyone as 'artists.' They didn't care if you had a record deal in the past, or been on tour in the past, or what you've done or what you haven't done. They really wanted to find people they thought were already artists in the making.They have fan pages on all of us on their main NBC website. You can click on it and follow us on Facebook and Twitter. They endorse all of that. It's the first talent competition TV show that not only releases the song that we recorded on our audition on iTunes, but our songs can actually chart. It's amazing. It really is giving every single person that makes it on the show a chance, a springboard. There's nothing out there like that. At the end of the day, it doesn't matter if you win. This show wants everybody to succeed."

'The Voice' airs on Tuesdays 9:00 PM ET on NBC. Follow Cherie's progress on her Facebook and Twitter pages, and catch some of her live performances here.