Page 136 - Cityview Magazine - July/August 2017

was because three years earlier you had been going to dance lessons, you had been training. All of those investments led up to that final night, that moment. We get to the finale. When I talked to you, you were not that nervous. I was; everybody else was. We get to the night of the selection, and I’ll tell you what I was thinking. I
was thinking that everybody you thought you’d lose if you stepped out of the box was right there.
B: Wow, I didn’t think of that.
H: You shed tears about what they would think. PJ was there—you collapsed, he held you up, and I’m sitting there watching you. We’re at Cokesbury; I don’t stand up. I sit in the chair and think, “I’ve got a lot of work. He’s going to come back and say, ‘Now it’s time to get to work’.”
B: You know why? You talk about hard work and dedication—you looked me in my eye before I left for those sixteen weeks and said, “Go win.”
H: I did say that. “Think like a fighter. You don’t have time for all the other stuff. Go win.” So when the confetti comes down and they call your name, you had to answer this question a million times.
B: I’ll tell you what went through my mind at the time. I began to think about all of those people I was afraid of, and that’s when I realized that I wasn’t the one that was trapped in a box. That was the first time I realized we all became free together. I began to weep for them. I began to weep for my coach because I know how bad she wanted to win, and I knew the sacrifice that she made in being patient and waiting on me. I wept for everybody back here in Knoxville, for all of the people across the world that supported Chris Blue on his journey. That moment was for them,
not for me.
H: When Alicia Keys picks up this article to read it, what do you want to say to Alicia Keys and what do you want to say about Alicia Keys?
B: If I had one word to describe Alicia Keys it would definitely be “real”: the love, the light, the joy, the passion, the energy,
Chris Blue and Alicia Keys on the set of The Voice.
all of those things that people feel through their television screens about her is real. She really loves, she really cares, and she’s really smart. If she was standing here right now, I would tell her to her face, “Thank you so much for your investment in me. Thank you for making the sacrifice to believe in me without ever knowing
me. Thank you for the patience and the time you took to help shape me, craft me, guide me into being a better musician and singer, and into a better man. Thank you for being real and not changing according to the way of a television show. Thank you for being my coach. Thank you for being my friend.” That’s exactly who she is. She is my friend. I thought when the cameras turned off, so would our relationship. But I feel like it’s grown even stronger.
H: What’s next?
B: What’s next is I’m going to New York to work on some more music.
H: You’re going to New York?
B: What’s next is I’m going to New York. We’re going to New York. And I’m really excited about it because I’m ready to work on my music and meet some more amazing people and launch the beginning of the real competition.
Radio and TV host, Grammy-nominated songwriter, and motivational speaker Hallerin Hilton Hill has been inspiring Knoxvillians for nearly 30 years.
Wardrobe provided by M.S. McClellan, Watch pro- vided by Kimball’s Jewelers, Hair by Jeffrey Scott, Makeup by Patty Watson.Thanks to Northshore Park for the use of their Marble Hall facility.
Trae Patton/NBC
134 CITYVIEWMAG.COM JULY AUGUST 2017