Amy Vachal

On the ninth season of the television singing competition The Voice, one singer's acoustic renderings of pop hits helped carry her to the semi-finals. Amy Lynn Vachal, a half-Filipina singer/songwriter from Somerset, New Jersey, auditioned with "Dream a Little Dream of Me" and landed on Pharrell Williams' team (she was later "stolen" by Adam Levine during the "Knockout" round). However, her life plan didn't originally include singing. Growing up in a mixed-race family, she was influenced by her father and his love of bluegrass and old gospel-soul. She graduated from Swarthmore...