Country great Martina McBride mentored the final seven American Idol contestants on Tuesday night.  McBride did a great job with everyone and is very beautiful country star to boot.  I believe the best performance of the night came from Nashville’s Melinda Doolittle.

The best four of the night were Sparks, Doolittle, Lewis and Stacey.

The bottom three performances were Sanjaya, Richardson and Jones

Phil Stacey- A – He did the Keith Urban song ‘Where the Blacktop Ends’.  I am not a huge fan but Phil did a good job with this song. I still believe he will be in the bottom two and is very likely to finally find out where the blacktop ends this week.  I am very surprised, with Phil’s affection for hats, that he didn’t wear a cowboy hat.

Jordin Sparks- A+ – She sang ‘A Broken Wing’ that McBride originally did.  Jordin is good enough to win this competition and probably has been the most consistent contestant over the past month.  She did this song nearly as good as Martina does.  She will be back without a doubt.

Sanjaya Malakar- F – San Man sang the Bonnie Rait song ‘Something to Talk About’.  Nothing uber crazy from SanMan this week. Sanjaya did a decent job. He has no problem poking fun at himself and is happy to be there.  We all know he shouldn’t be here at this point.  He wasn’t very good at all with this song.  Go to any karaoke bar in Nashville and you will find 20 better versions of this song on any night.  I just know what would happen if he tried to sing in a country bar.

Lakisha Jones- D – KiKi sang former American Idol winner Carrie Underwood’s massive hit ‘Jesus Take the Wheel’.  I don’t think she did as good a job as Underwood does with this song.  I believe she over-sang this song and needed to tune that massive voice down a couple of notches to make it work. It wasn’t horrible, but it wasn’t close to good either.

Chris Richardson- B – He sang the Rascal Flats song ‘Mayberry’.  It was a decent vocal in my opinion.  He does a good job with his stage presence.  I don’t know if it was strong enough to keep him from being eliminated, but it was a very solid performance.

Melinda Doolittle- A+ – Easily the best performance of the night. She sang ‘Trouble is a Woman’.  I assume this is a country song but she made it her song. It sounded like an ole’ R&B or cabaret song. Her voice does more tricks than a five legged pony.  She is my favorite to win it all.

Blake Lewis- A- – I am not a huge Blake fan. I believe he is very ego driven. However, tonight he did a very good job singing the Tim McGraw song ‘Where the Stars Go Blue’.  I just wish he was a bit more expressive with his face or smiled a bit more.  I fear he might win this competition over the more talented Doolittle.