It’s down to the Top 10 on Season 14 of The Voice. Coaches Alicia Keys and Blake Shelton have the advantage of having 3 artists left in the competition. One of the three on Team Blake is country rock singer/guitarist Pryor Baird. On Monday, May 7, the Top 10 perform songs that reflects a personal obstacle that the artist has overcome. The Voice calls it “Challenge Week.” Pryor Baird sings the 2002 song “My Town” by Kentucky-born country music duo Montgomery Gentry.*
Download Pryor Baird’s version of “My Town” on iTunes
Now for the tragic part: Troy Gentry, 50, died in September 2017 in a helicopter crash in New Jersey (on his way to a performance). Two months after Gentry’s death, Eddie Montgomery sang “My Town” with with Dierks Bentley and Rascal Flatts as a tribute during the 51st Annual Country Music Association Awards on November 8, 2017. When Baird sings the lyric “Where I came back to settle down/ This is where they’ll put me in the ground” it has a haunting quality given Gentry’s fate.
Pryor Baird’s hometown is Orcutt, California, which is in the Santa Maria Valley. Baird says he had a very simple upbringing without most amenities including heat or electricity. Baird now lives in Nashville. The Voice airs Mondays and Tuesdays at 8pm on NBC.
