New Orleans— Mississippi-born, Louisiana-raised singer-songwriter and soul artist Tonya Boyd-Cannon is no stranger to the music scene. The daughter of a preacher, she has been singing since she was a child.  Although most of her musical training came by way of high school and middle school band directors, auditory and observation, Boyd-Cannon is a classically trained vocalist studying vocal performance in college.

Tonya Boyd-Cannon will release her latest album, Clusters, at The Dew Drop Inn (2836 LaSalle Street) on April 8 at 8 p.m.

OffBeat has profiled Boyd-Cannon throughout the years. In 2015, we chronicled her time on The Voice. Jennifer O’Dell wrote that when Adam Levine told Tonya Boyd-Cannon she’d have to perform Elton John’s “Take Me to the Pilot” on the “Live” segment of NBC’s talent competition The Voice, the artist cried. It wasn’t a lack of fortitude—toughness was a prerequisite for her former position as a sheriff’s deputy in the Orleans Parish Prison. Her struggle wasn’t about technical challenges, either. She just couldn’t make it work. She tried praying, meditating, doing yoga … still, nothing. “Why would Adam do this to me?” she thought.

Finally, in a last-minute rehearsal before the televised performance, she made a suggestion. “Let me put my own twist on it,” she told the show’s musical director Paul Mirkovich. “Give me some church music in the beginning and let me usher myself into it.” He did. And as she began to sing the infamously abstruse lyrics, eyes closed, something clicked.

Boyd-Cannon traded the tune’s familiar piano intro for a few bars of restrained vibrato, then wrapped her gospel-rooted contralto around the melody and transformed the chorus into a soul-searching appeal for guidance. By all accounts—including those of celebrity coaches Levine, Pharrell Williams, Christina Aguilera and Blake Shelton—she nailed it.

“She’s a confidence builder. She’s unafraid,” Levine marveled. “That was crazy.” Watch one of her performances below.