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During the semi-finals episode of season 19 of The Voice, one contestant took the risky move of performing one of the coach’s own songs. Ben Allen chose to perform a classic Blake Shelton hit during the live shows.
Ben Allen performed during the episode for Team Gwen, but he started the season on Team Blake. Gwen Stefani is hoping to use the country singer against her fiance in order to win this season of the show.
Allen performed “It’s All About Tonight” by Blake Shelton for his second live show performance. He even changed up some of the lines in the song to be singing directly to Gwen Stefani, leading to some praise from Shelton.
Watch Ben Allen’s “It’s All About Tonight” Performance
We didn’t know how badly we needed @BenAllenband singing a @BlakeShelton song. 😍 #TeamGwen #VoiceTop9 t.co/kpc7Jgyzif
Allen sang “It’s All About Tonight,” and he impressed all of the coaches with his authentically country-sounding voice and performance skills.
“I finally like that song, excellent job!” host Carson Daly joked before asking Shelton what he thought.
He especially impressed Blake Shelton, though, who said he was “jealous” of the singer for two reasons. The first was that he’d sung the song so well, and the second was that he sung it to Shelton’s fiance. He also said he was blown away.
“I also kind of wanted to be you just then… I’m glad I record this show because I’m gonna go back and watch it,” Shelton said.
Shelton also said he would be watching the performance again to see how he should be performing his own song when he sang it live.
“I think it’s funny that I’m gonna win The Voice with you doing Blake’s song, America’s just gonna be all over that,” Allen’s coach Gwen Stefani said, urging America to vote for him and saying she was proud of him and blown away by the performance.
Allen also performed in a trio during the episode, in a new type of performance that was sponsored by Google.
Allen Has a Chance of Winning the Competition
According to his cast biography, Ben Allen is a 42-year-old performer originally from Kingston, Tennessee who now lives in Estero, Florida. He was raised in church and originally began singing in the church choir.
Allen continued singing, performing in the school chorus but stopped pursuing music following high school. Then, when he was 31 years old, he performed at an open mic night and loved it.
Later, Allen formed a five-piece band called the Ben Allen Band, which has a large following in Southwest Florida. Now and for the last ten years, Allen has been working as a construction inspector during the day and performing with his band at night.
This season, Allen has performed a number of songs, starting with “Red Dirt Road” during his blind audition and continuing into “There Goes My Life” and “She’s Got the Best of Me,” staying solidly in the country lane on the show.
The Voice airs on Mondays and Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on NBC.
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WATCH: Blake Shelton ‘Jealous’ of ‘The Voice’ Contestant