Shania Twain as coach on ‘The Voice’: ‘Some people can fall through the cracks’

What was going through Shania Twain’s mind while serving recently as a guest vocal coach on NBC’s “The Voice”? Was she more concerned with technical expertise or emotional impact?

“It’s a combination of both,” the Canadian pop-country superstar told us last week while discussing that role as well as her forthcoming album and her expectations for her headlining slot on Saturday at the 2017 Stagecoach Country Music Festival in Indio.

As it turns out, she was looking beyond a powerhouse set of pipes or an instantly engaging stage personality.

“It’s difficult to really assess a genuine talent, because they are in competition mode, right?” she asked while curled up comfortably against one arm of the sofa in her Beverly Hills hotel suite.

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“Let’s say, for example, Bob Dylan was doing a contest like this,” she said. “First of all, a really technical or mechanically minded judge might go, ‘Where’s the [vocal] range?’

“So, when you’re judging somebody with less technical ability, you’re not necessarily judging their entire talent. A lot of these people are not always technicians. That I find a little bit difficult.

“The other element is that … maybe Bob Dylan isn’t a competitive spirit, maybe he doesn’t do well under competitive scenarios, maybe that’s not where he shines. So what happens: Bob Dylan just goes away and maybe nobody ever hears him again? So this is where I try to see more below the surface and try to find the potential there. I think it’s important to be able to acknowledge the potential, because not everybody does well under those conditions.”

As a result, Twain said an important part of her role as a coach is to highlight talent that may not be obvious.

“I think the nurturing part of it is an important part of mentoring,” she said. “The guys on the panel too — they’re trying to see that, they’re trying to discover talent. You hope that they also are looking for what is under the surface, not just the guy who goes out and does really well because he’s a good competitor.

“Man, I know somebody like Joni Mitchell wouldn’t have walked out onstage” and instantly bowled judges over, she said. “That is not their talent. But their talent is brilliant and needs to be recognized.

“Paul Simon is another one of my favorite examples of that. Looking at that kind of talent purely on competitive capacity, performing in a competitive situation solely on their technical ability, I think some people can fall through the cracks.”

Her examples, however, do create an intriguing prospect: Who would win a singing competition if the contestants were Dylan, Simon and Mitchell?

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