The Los Angeles Times (July 29th 2011)

His voice will never grow soft

Reality TV raised Blake Shelton's profile. He says it won't change him one bit

Backstage at "The Tonight Show" last month, Blake Shelton demonstrated little appetite for meeting Scotty McCreery, the freshly crowned "American Idol" winner with whom Shelton was due to share Jay Leno's couch that afternoon. But the country singer's lack of interest seemed less a professional reflex -- Shelton just wrapped his first season as a team leader on NBC's would-be "Idol"-killer, "The Voice" -- than it did a byproduct of his determination to get close to Leno's other guest: "Gossip Girl" star Blake Lively.

"I really hope she stays out there for my interview," he said, taking in Lively's beach-blond beauty on a closed-circuit monitor in his dressing room. "I'm married now -- this is one of my life's joys."

Shelton is not a "Gossip Girl" viewer, he admitted, before enlisting his publicist to explain the series' premise. Yet as recently as a year or two ago, it's unlikely that this 35-year-old Oklahoma native would even have had occasion to profess his ignorance of a gorgeous teen-TV type from a "Tonight Show" dressing room. Though his songs regularly top Billboard's country chart, Shelton hasn't had the mainstream success of country stars like Brad Paisley and Tim McGraw. Sure, there was his hit 2008 cover of Michael Buble's soft-pop ballad "Home." But that was something of an aberration in a catalog defined by rowdier material, such as "The More I Drink" and the Trace Adkins duet "Hillbilly Bone."

"I wasn't very familiar with Blake at all before 'The Voice,'" says Adam Levine, the Maroon 5 frontman who rounds out the hit talent show's coaching panel along with Christina Aguilera and Cee Lo Green. "We just come from two completely different worlds." 

Those worlds may be starting to overlap with "Red River Blue," the studio album whose completion was hurried by Shelton's label, Warner Bros. Records, to capitalize on his increasing celebrity. "River" was scheduled to come out in September, says Warner Music Nashville President John Esposito. "But after we sold 138,000 copies of [lead single] 'Honey Bee' in its first week, Blake, his manager and I looked at each other and said, 'We're going to have to move this record up.' "

Throughout a day packed with TV tapings and "Voice"-related business, Shelton exuded the polished media savvy required for the kind of crossover success he and his handlers appear to be aiming for. Bantering with Billy Bush about his recent wedding to country singer Miranda Lambert, Shelton cracked up a room full of heard-it-all "Access Hollywood" crew members with a rakish charm that led one to call him the George Clooney of country music. (It's not an entirely irresponsible comparison.)

Despite that increasingly slick demeanor, Shelton insists he's still the small-town straight-shooter photographed inside a bar beneath a cowboy hat on the cover of his 2001 debut.

"People that know me know that I'm a redneck guy that loves to drink and sing country music and go hunting and fishing," he said during a ride from his rented home near the Hollywood Bowl to "The Tonight Show" studio in Burbank. (Bearing out his claim to some degree, the journey almost included a stop at Men's Wearhouse to pick up a replacement for a favorite shirt Shelton realized he'd left in his "Voice" trailer.) "Not everybody in the country-music community is like me -- I just happen to be one of the guys that is stereotypical." 

Part of that down-home makeup, Shelton acknowledges, is his taste for the occasional off-color remark. In May the singer caused a minor media commotion after he tweeted a revision to a Shania Twain lyric that some construed as homophobic. (Shelton later apologized on Twitter, writing that he was misunderstood and that "when it comes to gay/lesbian rights or just feelings ... I love everybody.") 

"He's a dude that likes to stir the pot," says Levine. "And he's very honest -- maybe too honest."

"I learned the hard way a couple of times now that being on a television show this big, people are watching everything I say," Shelton says. "But I think the reason this is working for me is because my goal was never to be a television star. If they fire me, then I already have a job, you know what I mean? I'm just going to be myself, and I'm not going to be afraid to say things other people probably wouldn't -- because if you don't like it, guess what? Most of the country does."

Shelton appears to be right: NBC recently renewed "The Voice" for a second season, while last week "Red River Blue" entered both the country chart and the all-genre Billboard 200 at No. 1. The album sold 116,000 copies in its first week, a career best for the singer.

"My tour is the last one he'll probably ever do that doesn't have his picture on the trucks," says Paisley, who selected Shelton to open his concerts this summer. (Shelton is scheduled to perform a headlining set of his own Friday night at Pacific Amphitheatre in Costa Mesa.) For his part, NBC reality-programming chief Paul Telegdy says, "Americans have discovered an entertainer who'll still be entertaining them in 25 or 30 years' time."

If that's the case, Shelton insists, it'll happen on his terms. 

"In country music, one of the ways we may have gone wrong in the past is trying to be politically correct all the time," he said as his van pulled to a stop on the NBC lot. "I think the worst thing you can do is blend in. Why would you ever want to blend in? I want to stand for something, and it's probably going to be something that some people stand against." He shrugged his shoulders. "So?"