While keeping it country might've limited her new friend and fellow contestant Alex Miller's shot at winning American Idol (without lowering his professional ceiling as a country artist, we might add), EmiSunshine needed no outside advice about casting a wide creative net.
The 16-year-old member of a musically-talented East Tennessee family, whose catalog includes an original song titled "Be You," paid homage to another bluegrass and folk picker at heart, Janis Joplin, by performing "Take Another Piece of My Heart" during the Monday night (March 29) Showstopper episode of the ABC competition series.
Despite a strong vocal performance and signs of the stage presence she's been perfecting since she was knee-high, judges Luke Bryan, Katy Perry and Lionel Richie sent Emi back home to Madisonville, Tenn.
Emi's going to be too busy to stay blue, between the slow return of live performance opportunities and an April 30 album release by her new band The Strong Armed Robbers, featuring her dad, Randall Hamilton, and fellow East Tennessee-based singer-songwriter Fish Fisher.
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Miller, her duet partner on a Hollywood Week cover of Johnny Cash's "I Walk the Line," also has big plans in 2021. He'll debut sometime soon on the Grand Ole Opry stage in Nashville.
Other Idol hopefuls sent home this week include another Tennessee teen, Drake McCain.
Here's the 24 contestants that moved on to the next round, including country music fans' potential rooting interest, Kentucky native Alyssa Wray:
Alana
Alanis Sophia
Alyssa Wray
Andrea Valles
Anilee List
Ava August
Beane
Caleb Kennedy
Casey Bishop
Cassandra Coleman
Cecil Ray
Chayce Beckham
Colin Jamieson
Deshawn Goncalves
Grace Kinstler
Graham DeFranco
Hannah Everhart
Hunter Metts
Jason Warrior
Liahona
Madison Watkins
Mary Jo Young
Willie Spence
Wyatt Pike
