When Great Neck native Jack Gregori was standing on stage auditioning for “The Voice” last week, he said he wasn’t thinking about his day job in law, or the fact that he lost nearly everything in the recent market crash, or even if any of the four judges would choose him – he was just trying to not forget the words to “Ring of Fire.”
“Up there you’re thinking ‘Is the chair going to turn chair, is the chair not going to turn, what does it mean if it doesn’t turn?’” Gregori said. “All those things are running through your mind but you have to clear it out of there and just sing.”
Gregori, 38, made it past the blind auditions in the popular NBC program “The Voice” last week, getting picked by coach/judge and Maroon 5 front man Adam Levine.
Levine turned his chair around to choose Gregori about 13 seconds into his cover of Johnny Cash’s 1963 hit.
“I love this guy,” Levine said, saying he had a “beautiful, true baritone.”
Country icon Blake Shelton called Gregori a “great country singer,” although he did not turn around for Gregori and allowed him to go to Levine.
“You’re the perfect guy for Adam,” he said.
Gregori was born in Great Neck and spent the first year of his life here, he said in an interview with Blank Slate Media, but now calls Washington D.C. home. He currently works as an attorney by day, but at night he plays music in clubs in D.C., Maryland and Virginia.
Both his parents also grew up in Great Neck, and when he would come back to visit his grandparents he said he would often visit the Poultry Mart, which he said has the best chicken salad.
Gregori, currently in Los Angeles, got his undergraduate degree from the University of Maryland, and his law degree from Boston University. Right after he graduated from Boston, he got a job at a title company, but left after only eight months to start his own firm, he said.
His firm generated millions of dollars in revenue, and Gregori said he was often working 14-hour days.
As a result, Gregori said, music – which had been a passion of his since he was a child – had to take a back seat.
“I just did it at the right time,” Gregori said. “The market blew up and I had about 40 employees at one point. Things were going very well until suddenly they were not going so well.”
When the market crashed around 2008, he said, he nearly lost everything. He said the crash helped put his life in perspective, forcing him to realize what was really important.
“When you have a situation where you get swept up into working a lot of hours and making a lot of money and all of a sudden you don’t have that, you look back and realize it really didn’t make you particularly happy,” he said.
Gregori said once he didn’t have to work all the time, he started to play music again, eventually forming his own band about five years ago called Human Country Jukebox, in which Gregori sings and plays guitar.
He said the crash made him realize how much he had missed music being in his life, and how much he missed playing it live.
One of Gregori’s friends who owns a music club in Washington D.C. who was instrumental in pushing him to play music again suggested to Gregori that he audition for “The Voice.”
Gregori said his friend sent him name into NBC to be considered for an audition, but he didn’t expect it to go anywhere.
But just last week he found himself facing the talent show’s four judges – Levine, Shelton, Christina Aguilera and Pharrell Williams.
Because he is a performer, Gregori said, singing on stage wasn’t foreign to him, but the situation was far more intense.
He said he was used to playing gigs that could go up to four hours long, and having to condense all that into two minutes was the biggest challenge.
Gregori said he tried to go into the competition with no expectation of who was going to pick him or even if he was going to get picked. He said on stage, he just tried to focus on what he was singing.
He said when Levine turned his chair, it took a huge weight off his shoulders.
Levine turning fairly early gave Gregori the opportunity to work on the rest of the song without worrying too much, he said.
Gregori said he and the rest of Team Adam work with Levine as well as the guest coach, singer Ellie Goulding. He said they all go into a room where the team members sing songs, throw ideas around and get feedback from the coaches.
“It’s a cool experience getting to interact with these megastars,” Gregori said. “It’s a great experience for anybody no matter what. You always learn something.”
The next part of the competition are battle rounds, in which two members of a team each sing the same song and the coach of that team picks a winner.
The winner advances, and the loser will either go home or be snatched up by one of the other coaches.
Gregori said winning “The Voice” would allow him to focus on music in a way he still can’t with his day job. He said to be a really good musician requires a total commitment – something he’d like to do.
“I don’t work remotely as much as I used to but it’s difficult to make any kind of money as a musician, almost no matter who you are,” Gregori said. “People do it clearly, but it’s really tough to do and most people that I know who do it full-time struggle mightily.”
Gregori said “The Voice” has been one of the most positive experiences in his life.
Being older than most of the contestants, Gregori said, he was skeptical when he first entered the competition. He said he was surprised by how everyone was so positive – from the coaches to the production staff.
“It’s been nothing but a good experience regardless of the outcome,” he said. “Anybody thinking about doing it that is worried about someone being mean to you, that’s not the way it is at all.”
