Kenzie Wheeler, 22, a native of Dover, had all four jurors on NBC The voice competing to work with him after singing Keith Whitley’s song Don’t close your eyes at the premiere of Monday’s 21st season.
Wheeler received a rare “four-seat swing” from Judges Kelly Clarkson, Blake Shelton, John Legend and Nick Jonas, meaning that all four heard his singing during the blind hearing and turned their chairs in hopes of training him for the rest of the reality show.
In the end, Wheeler, a self-styled “country boy”, chose Clarkson to be his trainer over the others.
Wheeler’s smooth baritone was not the only thing that impressed them.
“This guy has the triple threat of the mullet,” said Shelton of Wheeler’s hair. “Firstly, he has the party in the back, he has shaved sides, but then the widow’s rare peak. The rarest of all mullets, this guy is a unicorn. It doesn’t take your voice away, man. “
Wheeler said in his introduction: “I love my mullet, I will probably never cut it.”
Wheeler told jurors that he always loved country music and grew up singing in the car for his mother.
In 2016, Wheeler, who was first noticed for singing while doing karaoke at a restaurant in Plant City when he was a teenager, won the Tampa Teen Idol contest. He later opened for Charlie Daniels at the Hard Rock casino in Tampa.
He released an album entitled Dover in 2018.
Wheeler grew up playing children’s league baseball in Plant City and played at Strawberry Crest High School in Dover until he graduated in 2016. He told the Tampa Bay Times who currently works in a warehouse for a supermarket chain in Lakeland.