Just before Benton Blount began to sing, the camera cut to his wife in the audience, with their 1-year-old son Jaxon in her lap.
The "America's Got Talent" cameraman captured Jaxon giving a thumbs-up — a fitting image because they're his biggest source of motivation. Jaxon's hand gesture Tuesday night was also a harbinger of things to come: The crowd loved his performance and so did the celebrity judges, who propelled Blount into the next phase of the nationally televised talent competition.
Blount, 36, will perform live Aug. 11 at Radio City Music Hall in New York. His rousing cover of Dolly Parton's "Jolene" brings him one step closer to the $1 million prize awarded to the show's winner.
While the Greenville musician has gained a slice of fame, he's still working on the fortune. He's a stay-at-home dad, while his wife, Ashley Blount, works as a paralegal in downtown Greenville. He's been performing musically for 15 years, singing in bars and traveling to various cities.
"When it was just me and my wife, it was a little easier because she understood what I was doing. It was me having to leave her — which I hated to do," Blount told The Greenville News on Wednesday. "But we were able to make it work a lot easier. Having my first child changed everything because I can't just go out and play shows and come home and not bring money home because I'm trying to help support the family.
"The show gave me the opportunity, finally, to do that and to do that in a way that I've always dreamed of doing."
Blount's wife has lived in the Greenville area her entire life. She's the reason he has settled in the Upstate. Blount, originally from Valdese, North Carolina, grew up without knowing his father, and said on the show he's trying to make Jaxon proud.
The taped telecast in New York was the first time he performed in front of his son. Blount's expenses are paid for by NBC, but his wife and child had to pay their own way.
"I just felt like it was something I needed to do and I really wanted him to be there to experience it," Blount said. "So we just saved here and saved there and we had, luckily, some family and friends that even pitched in to make sure we got the airfare covered."
Jaxon, who will be 2 years old next week, clapped along with the rest of the crowd during his father's performance on this week's show. The eyes of the judges lit up as Blount's voice belted out the lyrics of "Jolene."
Howard Stern, one of the judges, said Blount hit a "home run." Guest judge Marlon Wayans said he would buy the album if he heard Blount sing "Jolene" on the radio.
"I think you have a beautiful singing voice," Heidi Klum, another judge, said. "It's a little rough around the edges and I like it."
Blount is active on Facebook and Twitter, tweeting throughout the show. Many of his fans tweeted out congratulations after it was revealed that he had advanced on the show. Host Nick Cannon and former South Carolina quarterback Connor Shaw were among those who tweeted about Blount.
"It was pretty neat," he said.
Blount has 46,000 followers on Twitter and 33,000 likes on his Facebook page — numbers that increased after the show Tuesday night. He'll need those fans going forward. Fan voting will decide who continues and who goes home.
"There could be 500,000 people in America that love what I do and love my voice and they even post about it online," Blount said. "But if only 100 of those people vote, I could not be there for the next round. So the voting's really, really important from now on out on the show."
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