Blake Shelton Admits Not Knowing Paul Simon’s ‘America’

On The Voice, contestant Joshua Davis sang the Simon & Garfunkel classic America. Simon wrote the song in 1968. It was on the duo’s Bookends album. Eight years later country singer Blake Shelton was born in Ada, Oklahoma. After Davis’ strong performance of the song, Shelton, a mentor on The Voice, praised Davis but confessed he didn’t know the song. Fellow mentor Adam Levine, two years younger than Shelton, was appalled. “Do you know any songs?” Levine asked incredulously. (Plenty, Blake might have replied.)

Blake then put his Voice counterpart Christina Aguilera on the spot. “Do you know the song?” he asked her. Aguilera is the youngest of the judges; she’s 34. She said she did. She made a reference to Almost Famous. Aguilera was referring to the 2000 Cameron Crowe film, starring Kate Hudson, about the American music scene in 1973. America is on the soundtrack.