Nicole Sherrill has a famous surname in the Nashville music industry. But ask her if she's kin to Billy Sherrill, and you'll have to clarify which one. Nicole, 21, is the daughter of the highly regarded recording engineer Billy Sherrill, not the producer Billy Sherrill who worked on classic records by the likes of George Jones, Tammy Wynette and Charlie Rich.

Nicole started her audition with Lady Gaga's Poker Face, but her screener asked her for a different song and she sang Leona Lewis' Bleeding Love. "I thought he was going to say no, and then he was like, 'Wait, I want to talk to you.'," she says. When Nicole came out of Nashville's Bridgestone Arena Saturday evening after getting through the first round of auditions for American Idol, her father wasn't far away: "He's actually at the Ryman [Auditorium] right now, doing the Opry!"