Before achieving national recognition as a 20-year-old contestant on the singing competition series The Voice, Holly Tucker had already built a notably active résumé in music. Born in Waco, Texas, in 1993, she grew up in a household steeped in song; while attending college, both of her parents performed with the Christian ensemble Revised Edition, touring for several years to deliver their music and personal testimony before eventually relocating to Texas to start a family. Tucker showed an early affinity for performance, making her debut in front of an audience by singing at church when she turned seven. By age twelve she was appearing regularly at congregations and local talent contests across Texas and Louisiana, backed by her parents’ encouragement, while also accompanying herself on piano, guitar, and alto sax. In 2007 the fourteen-year-old issued her debut full-length album, It’s About Time, which she sold directly at her shows. The following year brought the four-track demo For You, and in 2011 she returned with her second album, Love Is What She Likes; those recordings and her live work earned her the titles of Solo/Duo Act of the Year and Female Vocalist of the Year from the Music Association of Central Texas for 2011. While studying Speech Communications and Spanish at Baylor University—where she also played saxophone in the marching band—Tucker partnered with the student-run label Uproar Records, which issued her 2012 three-song EP Something to Be Said. Later that year, during a performance trip to Dallas, she discovered that open-call auditions for The Voice were taking place nearby; she advanced from the preliminary round and was asked to continue in Los Angeles, where her reading of Garth Brooks’ “To Make You Feel My Love” drew strong approval from the celebrity panel. Choosing Blake Shelton as her coach, Tucker delivered a version of the hymn “How Great Thou Art” that charted on Billboard’s Country and Heatseekers lists, while her take on the Band Perry’s hit “Done” also registered on the country chart. She reached the final six contestants before being eliminated on June 14, 2013. Reflecting afterward, she told reporters, “My time on The Voice was an incredible chapter in my life. It opened my eyes as an artist, gave me more confidence to take the stage, and propelled me further down the road to becoming the country music artist I have been pursuing for much of my life.” Tucker kept a full calendar of live dates, releasing the Christmas single “About a Baby” in November 2013.
