 |
| Photo: NBC |
“The Voice” has crowned Team John Legend’s last standing contestant Maelyn Jarmon, winner for Season 16.
The 26-year-old artist Texan beat out Team Blake Shelton’s power trio Gyth Rigdon, Dexter Roberts and Andrew Severner with her powerful voice and John’s guidance that led to the EGOT winner’s first “The Voice” victory.
On Monday’s finale performance show, Jarmon debuted her original single, “Wait for You,” which was written by Hayley Warner, Gino Barletta, and writer/producers Christopher Petrosino and Robert McCurdy of Noise Club. Jarmon had many songs with choose from, several written by Hayley who she connects with.
“I connect with how she writes. And with that song, you know, I had never collaborated or written with other people,” Maelyn told TVMusic Networkduring a press conference with Legend after her victory. “I’m a songwriter myself, and this felt like experience for me. No one has ever been, like, “Well, sing my song.” So, I was, like, you know what, this is my time to take advantage of that. So, I went for that. And I’m so glad that I did because that song, I feel I could have written it because it was very relevant to my relationships currently, and it sat really well in my voice, and I really felt it. And she is a cool chick. And she ended up showing up to my recording, which was so cool. She came in, and she was very hands-on. And I got to record it with the guys who wrote it and originally engineered it. So, it was a really awesome experience.”
For John, it was a simple as letting Maelyn do what was in her heart.
“I just had to approve it, ” he said. “They sent it to me. And it was, “Maelyn likes this song; do you like it,” and I was, like, “Oh, yeah. She’ll sound really great doing this.” And she nailed it.
“It’s also a little different from my — the stuff that I had done, Maelyn added. “So, it was nice to, like, change it up a little.”
John agreed. “Yeah, I think the tempo was good for her to change up, and it worked. I mean, to get an original song on the top ten on iTunes is a challenge because people, kind of, flock to things that are more familiar a lot of times. And for the original songs to do so well, I thought, was a testament to their delivery of the song, and also to Gyth, as a writer, to get his song in the top ten, that’s a pretty awesome thing. There are a lot of people that have been writing for a long time that haven’t had that happen to them. And so, it’s pretty incredible.”
Check out Maelyn performing her single “Wait For You” and also check out a compilation of all of her performances this season below.
“The Voice” returns for Season 17 with coaches Kelly Clarkson, John Legend, Adam Levine and Blake Shelton in September on NBC.
