Montgomery resident D.Smooth finds a 'Perfect' path to compete on 'The Voice'

D.Smooth is used to performing Ed Sheeran’s song “Perfect” at life-changing events.

“I love that song,” said the 25-year-old Montgomery resident. “I’ve sung it at weddings before.”

That’s why it was the “perfect” chance to perform a different version of it for celebrity judges on NBC’s “The Voice” during his season 23 blind audition.

“It was very strategic with me picking that song,” D.Smooth said. “I knew the coaches knew it.”

D.Smooth’s nerves were admittedly a bit raw as he began. He was singing not just to celebrity coaches Blake Shelton, Kelly Clarkson, Niall Horan and Chance the Rapper — but to their backs. That’s the way “The Voice” works. You’ve got to impress the coaches enough to want to turn around.

Any sign of nervousness vanished seconds later with the turn of Clarkson’s chair. She was an instant fan of the riffs D.Smooth was making, which she said were at a “Brian McKnight level.”

“It was very fulfilling,” D.Smooth said. “After the chair turn, I could woosh out a little. I could let out some breath. It was a great feeling after that.”

Just before the song’s end, Horan also turned his chair. That meant D.Smooth had a coach choice to make.

Besides getting the awesome Team Kelly jacket, which D.Smooth said he’s been wearing all the time, what tipped him toward the Grammy-winning Texas singer/songwriter?

“Kelly, she captures me,” D.Smooth said. “I love Kelly, and I’m a big fan of her, and what she stands for in the music realm. She’s just an A-list person. An A-list vocalist. Country and Southern roots, just like me.”

Now that he’s secured a spot to move forward on “The Voice,” D.Smooth said he’s been making the most of it with his vocal coaches, preparing for whatever’s next.

“I took that and ran with it,” he said.

Of course he’s not running alone. He’s not even the only singer from Montgomery on “The Voice” this season. Fifteen-year-old Ryley Tate Wilson, who D.Smooth calls his “Little Bro,” and Jerome Godwin III, 20, also made it past the blind auditions. Both Montgomery singers are on Team Niall.

“I’m grateful I actually met them up there,” D.Smooth said. “I’m grateful we all made a team, and it’s cool. They have become my family now.”

“The Voice” airs Mondays at 7 p.m. and Tuesdays at 8 p.m. on NBC.

To the family, friends and fans back home, D.Smooth urged them to tune in to see Alabamians doing their thing on the show.

“I hope y’all fall in love with me being me,” D.Smooth said.

How D.Smooth got his music groove

“Now, I think I’m pretty comfortable when it comes to music,” D.Smooth said. “God has really showed me that this is my calling.”

But it wasn’t a straight shot to that point.

As a kid growing up in the tight-knit rural town of Mulga, just north of Birmingham, D.Smooth got his start the same way as many Southern singers — in church choir.

“It was one way in, one way out, with two churches in the neighborhood,” D.Smooth said.

As a kid, D.Smooth was in a jazz band. But at the same time, he was pushing himself as a multi-sport student athlete through high school and college.

“I thought that was my calling,” he said. “Other people saw the singing in me, and I eventually started clinging to it.”

He attended Faulkner University in 2016, which is how he found himself in Montgomery.

“I don’t have no family here, but we have ties in Montgomery,” D.Smooth said. “My mom went to Alabama State, and I have a plethora of family that went to Alabama State.”

He started performing music gigs at 18. It wasn’t a completely “smooth” process for him, he admits.

“You just mess up so much until you get it right,” D.Smooth said.

After a year-and-a-half at Faulkner, D.Smooth went back to Birmingham for a while to work. But Montgomery called him home in 2019.

“Ever since then, I’ve been down here,” he said.

He wasn’t performing that often for a while, especially during the pandemic. His job kept him extremely busy, taking packages to the masses of isolated people who were ordering things online and having them delivered.

“I was working at UPS,” D.Smooth said. “That was an essential job, so I had to go to work every single day. I couldn’t even take off because of COVID.”

He was also a barber, which D.Smooth called his side hustle.

That other time D.Smooth almost made it on “The Voice”

In 2021, D.Smooth almost found himself in the national spotlight. He’d been selected to take part in the blind auditions for that season’s “The Voice.”

“That was my first time even getting on a plane, to be honest, let alone going to California,” he said. “I’m grateful I got to experience everything that came with it. I was on the last day to go, and the teams got filled before it was my turn, so I didn’t get to audition.”

That taste of “The Voice” stuck with D.Smooth, who made it his goal to return. He quit all his jobs to pursue music full time, and found a way to use that to pay his bills.

“Music became my wife then,” D.Smooth said. “At first it was like my girlfriend, or like my side piece. But it became my wife, and I treat her right now.”

Follow this season's "The Voice" online at nbc.com/the-voice.

Montgomery Advertiser reporter Shannon Heupel covers things to do in the River Region. Contact him at sheupel@gannett.com

This article originally appeared on Montgomery Advertiser: Montgomery resident D.Smooth finds a 'Perfect' path to 'The Voice'