Midas’ touch

Joshua Davis advances to top six on “The Voice”

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Last week, Michigan-based singer Joshua Davis narrowly avoided elimination from reality TV singing competition “The Voice,” needing his fans to voice their support on Twitter to activate the show’s “Instant Save” in the closing seconds of the April 21 results show.

What a difference a week makes. Jason Derulo opened Tuesday’s results show with musical number, and the reverberations of the tune had barely finished ringing when host Carson Daly announced that Davis would be the first artist to advance to the top six.

Before this week, Davis delivered two performances that pushed the singer outside of his comfort zone — a calculated risk designed to prove that Davis could hang with the show’s big-voiced competitors.

The strategy seemed to backfire, however, and last week’s out-of-his-element performance landed Davis in the bottom three. After last week’s brush with elimination, it seems that Davis and celebrity mentor Adam Levine decided to change their approach.

On Monday, Davis confidently delivered a strippeddown, acoustic guitar-driven take on Sting’s “Fields of Gold.” The performance marked a return to the intimate, personal style that had impressed judges on the show to begin with.

“It feels like an old folk ballad,” said Davis, explaining his song choice. “It feels like a song I would write.”

And the celebrity judges took notice.

“It’s so refreshing to see you get back to what you’re best at,” said Blake Shelton. “I feel like last week was kind of a left turn. Tonight proves why you deserve to still be here.”

“There’s so many bombastic, giant voices singing huge, powerhouse, crazy vocals,” added Levine. “I love the fact that you did something that was really distinctively very different. And you did it with class and with elegance that I really admire.”

Davis’ fans — perhaps freshly motivated by last week’s down-to-the-wire near-elimination — took to the Internet once again, driving Davis’ digital single of “Fields of Gold” as high as number four on iTunes’ Top 200 Singles Chart.

Each single sold on iTunes counts as one vote for the singer, and those votes are added to votes received by phone, text, Website and mobile app to determine each week’s winners. Cracking the top 10 on the iTunes chart qualified Davis for an “iTunes Bonus,” which multiplied his iTunes votes by 10.

The only other competitor to breach the top 10 this week was 16-year-old phenom Sawyer Fredericks, whose rendition of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Simple Man” reached number two on the charts.

Davis will take the stage on Monday’s episode of “The Voice” to make a bid for the top four.

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