Southern Indiana Sensation: Snelling speaks about time on The Voice

Oct. 4—AUSTIN — Music is everything to Jackson Snelling. The Austin resident used it as a way to communicate to his brother, and now his voice is becoming known around the country.

Snelling had his blind audition on The Voice last week where he was able to impress two coaches, Reba McEntire and Gwen Stefani. McEntire is his coach on The Voice, and Snelling is working with the country music legend as he prepares for more fall appearances on the NBC series.

But before the bright lights and the stage, Snelling used his talents for deeply personal reasons.

Jackson and his brother, Dawson, live with autism. Jackson experienced sensory and behavioral challenges while Dawson struggled with severe cognitive difficulties and didn't speak until he was 7 years old.

"I actually got into music when I was a toddler," Jackson said. "I started doing sign language and singing to my brother to help stimulate his brain."

The two were both in therapy when they were younger, and their therapist wanted to see what would happen if they put the two of them in the same therapy session.

When they tried it, Jackson started to sing and sign the lyrics to nursery rhymes at the same time to help stimulate his brother's brain.

"Music means the world to me," Jackson said. "Music has helped me through so many hard times and tribulations in my life. To me, music is very therapeutic. I use it in that way through my songwriting to cope with things."

When he was 16, he had his first gig and started to get into music professionally from it. In 2020, he became focused on becoming a country music singer after doing a cover of a Morgan Wallen song, "Whiskey Glasses."

He auditioned for an episode of American Idol, but unfortunately didn't make the cut.

Before becoming a country singer, he was singing a lot of pop music. After the death of his father, it was hard for him and his family to listen to country because of how big of a fan of the genre his dad was.

"Up until about 17, I sang nothing but Pop music, that was my genre," Jackson said. "Then I turned 18 and got more back in touch with my country roots."

When he released the cover of "Whiskey Glasses," his supporters, friends and family wanted him to start singing country music. He thought "why not," and traded in his tennis shoes for boots and bought some flannels to fit the role.

He applied for the Voice, and was with his friends when he got the news that he was going to beo n the show.

"I was freaking out," Jackson said. "When I got the phone call, it was from a number I don't have on my phone. So, I picked it up and they were like 'Hey there you're going to be flying out...' I was like 'Oh my God!' I jumped up and started freaking out."

His friends asked him what was going on, but he could not tell them the news he heard. Some of them assumed that he was going back on to American Idol.

When he got home, he told his mom the news about being on the show.

Once on the show, he thought that he was going to choose Gwen Stefani as his coach because of all of her team of country artists.

"My dad and my mom and my whole family grew up listening to Reba," Jackson said. "I told myself before I walked out there 'If Reba turns, I'm going to take it as a sign from my dad and I'm going to go with Reba.' And she turned and I was like 'Welp dad, this is what you wanted for me, so here we go.'"

If his dad was still here with him, Jackson said that he would be freaking out 24/7 from the fact that he is on Team Reba and is working so closely with her.

"My dad was a super fan, it would have been crazy," Jackson said. "He had all the cassettes, records. He would be over the moon if he were here right now."

The experience of being on the show has been one of the best experiences of his life, Jackson said. It has also been an awesome experience for his family as well.

"We'll go out to the store or to town and people will recognize me... My brother actually got to sign some autographs for the first time, which was really cool," Jackson said.

Jackson is on a break from recording and will go back to doing the live recordings in November.

After the show, Jackson wants to go back to what he has been doing and make new music, release some covers and perform.

"Right now, I'm writing and working on my next EP, hopefully that will be out sometime in the next few months. I'm really excited for everybody to hear that," Jackson said.