Bluffdale's Cade Mower reaches 'The Voice' live shows with a 'chance at redemption'

BLUFFDALE — Cade Mower, the 35-year-old singer from Bluffdale who turned all four coaches' chairs in his blind audition, has advanced to the live shows on "The Voice," and he is treating Monday's return to the stage as a second chance 1.

He got there without singing. Mower received an automatic bid to the live shows during Cut Week, the round the Deseret News described as the show's largest single-week elimination in history, cutting the field from 28 contestants to 12; the show will add a 13th singer next week on viewer votes 1. His coach, country singer Riley Green, had already advanced him through the Battle round on Oct. 26 2.

That Battle is the part he wants back. Mower and Brayden Howell, a 19-year-old singer from North Carolina, sang the Red Clay Strays' "Wondering Why" as a duet, paired by Green with Carly Pearce joining Team Riley as guest adviser 24. To fit both voices, the arrangement was dropped into a register Mower said did not show off the strongest part of his range, so he changed his parts at the last minute — a gamble he told the Deseret News he wished he had not taken 1.

"I got in my head," Mower said, noting that he came in earlier than he was supposed to on his first note, which set off a chain reaction of disappointments through the performance 1. Kelly Clarkson did not share the doubt. "Your vocals are insane," she told him after the duet 2. Queen Latifah said he had been on her mind since the blind audition, and Green praised him for already knowing what he does well 24.

The blind audition is where the Bluffdale resident arrived. A few seconds into Zach Bryan's "Something in the Orange," all four coaches turned — Adam Levine, Clarkson, Latifah and Green — and Latifah told him, "You can take this whole thing" 3. Clarkson, learning that he works full time in finance, asked, "You're a finance bro with that voice?" 3. He chose Green, who told him, "Choose Team Riley, and we'll go win this thing" 3. The audition has drawn more than 3 million views on the show's official YouTube channel 3.

Mower graduated from Riverton High School and Utah State University, and he came up playing Monday nights at his uncle's bar, Club 48 in Murray, once he turned 21 1. "I think he paid me like $50 a night or something," Mower said of his uncle 1. He moved to Austin for the music he loved, met his wife Lindsey there when she was a server at a place he was playing, and later sold a house at a loss to move to Nashville 1.

Filming has meant two months of the past five in Los Angeles, 30 days at a time, away from Lindsey and their two young children 1. "It hurt so bad that I very solidly internalized that heartache and converted it into presence when I came home," he said 1.

What he says he will not do on the live shows is chase notes. "I know what I am, I know what I'm not," Mower said. "I'm not the guy that's gonna do vocal acrobatics. ... I'm the guy that's gonna just sing the song" 1. He said his time on the show has felt authentic, and that the exposure "just adds fuel to the fire" 1.