Cee Lo Green Shares Smiles, Starts Building His Team on Week One of ‘The Voice’

A surprisingly underdressed Cee Lo Green found kind words and shared a big smile with nearly every contestant on the premiere of 'The Voice' tonight, and wound up with the first three members of his eight person singing crew.

After the show kicked off with all four coaches joining forces to sing one of his signature hits, 'Crazy,' the Goodie Mob, Gnarles Barkley and solo star tried recruiting a large number of the 15 singers that tried out. Attired in a simple punk rock T-shirt with red glasses, he had a big smile and kind, insightful comments for everybody, and successfully convinced three of the competitors to join forces with him: Tje Austin, Kelsey Rey and Vicci Martinez.

Austin impressed Cee Lo with his performance of Bruno Mars' 'Just the Way You Are,' and Kelsey Rey, who's had it tough in life because she's apparently too pretty for people to recognize her vocal talent on its own (everybody: "whaaaaa!") got validation when the singer praised her breath control and vocal clarity, without even seeing her face. Despite pitches from fellow judges Adam Levine and Christina Aguilera, she chose Cee-Lo.

The jolly rapper (yes, he does both) saved some of his kindest words for Martinez and her performance of Adele's 'Rolling in the Deep.' "I love that record, but to turn around and see you living out that record, I saw you reach down and get that octave out. It's not easy to do for everyone. You inspire me and you touched my heart. That's why I pushed my button for you." Needless to say, she was swayed and onboard.

He seemed close to taking a shot at the next contestant, Sonia Ray, who performed Alica Keys' 'If I Ain't Got You,' but ultimately he backed down and nobody else chose her either. Still, Cee Lo's got nearly half of his gang ready. "I have a strong team," he enthused during the show's ending segment. "This is going to be real because I want to win. The competition's getting tough out there," he concluded, with the semi-serious tag "friends are becoming foes."