By Donna Cornelius
Journal Features Writer
Sarah Simmons hit all the right notes during her debut on NBC’s “The Voice.”
The Mountain Brook native appeared on the vocal competition March 26 in what the show calls its blind auditions.
Like her fellow contestants, Sarah began her performance by being heard–but not seen–by coaches Adam Levine, Shakira, Blake Shelton and Usher. And sight unseen, at least for the first few minutes of her song, Sarah wowed the four music stars with her rendition of “One of Us,” a rock ballad made popular by Joan Osborne.
In the blind audition rounds, the first of four stages of the competition, the coaches can hear the contestants but can’t see them. A coach who likes what he or she is hearing pushes a button and chooses the contestant for his or her team.
If no coach hits the button, the contestant’s time on the show is over. But if more than one coach wants the contestant, the singer gets to choose which team to join.
That’s what happened to Sarah.
Seconds after the 23-year-old began to sing, Levine was quickest on the draw, pushing his button just ahead of Shakira. It didn’t take long for Shelton and Usher to follow.
“That was incredible,” Levine, the front man for Maroon 5, told Sarah when she finished singing. “One hundred fifty percent, you can win this show.”
Shelton, a popular country music artist, made his pitch, too.
“You may be one of the top three singers I’ve ever heard audition for ‘The Voice,’” he said.
After all four coaches tried to woo Sarah to their teams, she picked Team Adam Levine.
There was more good news to come. Sarah’s rendition of “One of Us” soared to No. 21 on iTunes and No. 4 in iTunes’ alternative music category after the show.
Waiting in the wings as Sarah performed was a cheering section that included Peggy Foster Jones, Sarah’s mom.
Peggy had flown to Los Angeles to see her daughter sing in the blind auditions. She and husband Barry Jones live in Mountain Brook.
Also there were Sarah’s father, John Simmons of Virginia, and her boyfriend Greg Langston of Memphis, Tenn. Sarah is a student at Visible Music College in Memphis.
Peggy said she first realized her daughter had a special talent for singing when Sarah was a student at Crestline Elementary.
“The fifth grade classes had gone to Camp Alpine, and they divided into groups to do skits,” said Peggy, a real estate agent at RealtySouth in Homewood. “Sarah sang ‘I’ve Got Rhythm.’ She and my mother used to sing all the old songs together.’”
When Peggy went to pick up Sarah after the trip, she said, teachers and parents alike got off the bus saying, “You didn’t tell us Sarah could sing!”
Peggy enlisted the help of Eleanor Trafton, a theater teacher at Mountain Brook High School and a family friend.
“I took Sarah to her, and she said, ‘Peggy, she’s got a God-given gift,’” Peggy said. Trafton became Sarah’s vocal teacher.
At Crestline Elementary and later at Mountain Brook Junior High and High School, Sarah regularly won talent awards, her mother said. She participated in Summerfest Musical Theatre, now Red Mountain Theatre Company, performing in New York and even aboard a ship.
Sarah was a fixture in Mountain Brook High’s musical theater productions and in the choir.
“At Mountain Brook Baptist, where our kids were raised, she went on mission trips and was active in the youth program,” Peggy said.
After graduating from Mountain Brook High, Sarah earned a music scholarship to the University of Mobile, her mother said, and transferred after a year and half there to Visible Music College.
“The president of the school is Ken Steorts, who was the founding guitarist for the Christian band Skillet,” Peggy said. “He recommended Sarah to ‘The Voice.’ The producer called and asked her to come and audition.”
Sarah had “prayed about her singing and said that the Lord would open doors for her,” Peggy said. But, she added, her daughter had never expressed an interest in being on a TV competition, despite the urging of friends to try out for “American Idol.”
“When this opportunity came, she called me about it,” Peggy said. “I told her, you didn’t seek this—they sought you. I think you should go through that door.”
Sarah was one of more than 40,000 who auditioned for “The Voice,” Peggy said.
Family members and friends who watched Sarah on the March 26 episode have asked why she didn’t say she was from Birmingham, Peggy said.
“She actually did say she was from Birmingham,” Peggy said, “but that part just didn’t make it onto the air.”
In an interview on “The Voice” website, Sarah does say she’s from Birmingham, her mother said.
Next up for Sarah and the other contestants are the battle rounds, when the coaches will pit two of their own team members against each other to sing the same song in front of a studio audience.
Peggy plans to return to L.A. for the battle rounds with Barry and with Sarah’s older sister, Jessica Simmons, a NICU nurse at Children’s of Alabama. Peggy isn’t sure when Sarah will perform but said the information will be on the show’s website, www.nbc.com/the-voice.
If Sarah makes it past that round, she will compete in the knockout rounds, when each coach chooses only one team member to continue in the competition.
Finally, there’s the live competition. The TV audience votes for the winner, who gets a recording contract and $100,000.
Peggy said she’s confident in her daughter’s ability to perform a variety of songs.
“She’s very versatile and can sing any kind of music,” Peggy said.
While some of Sarah’s relatives are musical, Peggy credits another source for her daughter’s gift.
“People will ask me where she got her talent from, and I tell them Sarah’s musical talent came from God,” she said.
That talent was recently on display in Birmingham when Sarah sang “Breath of Heaven” on Christmas Eve at her parents’ church, Mountain Brook Community Church.
Sarah’s whole family has supported her, Peggy said, saying that Sarah is very close to her stepfather Barry, a structural engineer who’s the co-owner of Tucker-Jones Engineers, and to her siblings.
In addition to her sister Jessica, Sarah has a stepbrother, Ballard Jones, an Auburn University graduate who’s now working in Birmingham, and a stepsister, Hayden Jones, who will graduate from Tulane University in May.
“We’re a close family, and I’m so proud of all of our children,” Peggy said.
Peggy said she couldn’t help wishing her parents, the late “Bubber” and Elizabeth Foster of Mountain Brook, could have been in L.A. to see Sarah’s shining moment.
“My mother was one of Sarah’s biggest fans,” Peggy said. “I think her grandparents are up there rooting her on.”
