12 minute read
Cover Story
‘Voice’ star returns home for belated concert
Richard Duckett Worcester Magazine | USA TODAY NETWORK
Advertisement
“It doesn’t seem it was too long ago,” ace guitarist and singer-songwriter Ricky Duran said of his appearances toward the end of 2019 on the NBC show “The Voice,” where he advanced all the way to the final and finished as Season 17 runner-up.
On the other hand, “It seemed as if everything just stopped,” he said of what followed.
With his success on the show ringing in peoples’ ears, Duran, who was born in Worcester and grew up in Grafton, seemed on the cusp of some even bigger things happening in his music career.
A year prior to making himself heard on “The Voice,” Duran had moved to Austin, Texas, where he still lives, to concentrate “100 percent” on music after developing an appreciative following in the Worcester music scene over the course of several years.
With his blues guitar playing, soulful raspy vocals and stage presence, Duran wowed the judges each week, and then the voters.
With his success on “The Voice” still echoing, it was quickly announced that Duran would perform a “homecoming concert” on March 27, 2020, at The Hanover Theatre and Conservatory for the Performing Arts in Worcester.
But events would quickly lead to the world stopping because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the show was postponed, announced with a new date, and then postponed again, before now being scheduled for 8 p.m. Sept 18.
Duran, who has had to do a lot of waiting, can’t wait.
“I’m really excited to finally perform,” Duran said. “It was supposed to happen a year and a half ago.”
For the The Hanover Theatre show, Duran, who just tuned 32, said, “I kind of owe it to my
If you go
What: Ricky Duran; opening, Sam James
When: 8 p.m. Sept 18. Where: The Hanover Theatre and Conservatory for the Performing Arts, 2 Southbridge St., Worcester How much: $32, $45 and $55. VIP, post-show meet and greet tickets are $100. (877) 571-7469. www.thehanovertheatre.org
Duran
Continued from Page 14
fans to sing some of the songs they heard on ‘The Voice.’ Also some of my music, and covers.”
He’ll be playing with a fivepiece band and a couple of backing vocalists. Dan DeCristofaro of the local band Blue Light Bandits that Duran formerly played with will be keyboardist.
Opening the show is singersongwriter Sam James, a friend of Duran’s from his Worcester days who has also appeared on “The Voice” (Season 3) as well as NBC’s “Songland.”‘
Duran was hoping during a recent telephone interview that the Sept.18 show at The Hanover Theatre will be a catalyst for a big tour — something else that had been planned for 2020.
Besides which, performing live is what he loves best as a singer/musician.
With that, few live gigs can match “The Voice” for tension, given how much is riding on a short performance (make or break, sink or swim), but Duran looked like he thrived on it.
Asked about some of the things he remembered fondly from his time on “The Voice,” Duran replied, “You know what I like to remember are the live performances. Playing on live television to a live studio audience with some iconic artists in the room. There’s the countdown, ‘3-2-1,’ you’re anxious but also excited. That’s what I live for, the live performing. I think the Hanover will feel just like that. That’s pretty much why I got into music in the first place — the audience and the way you make them feel during your performance. Every song is different.”
Duran nearly wasn’t heard at all on “The Voice” as a serious behind-the-scene drama played out just as Duran was about to perform his “blind audition” on the show.
Duran
Continued from Page 15
His three sisters, Natalie, Maria and Julia, and his girlfriend, Alyssa Tosti, had accompanied Duran to Los Angles to be in the studio for his blind audition.
“It was a roller coaster with all the anxiety of performing, then I got a call, I believe it was from my sister,” Duran recalled. Tosti was in an ambulance after suffering what turned out to be stroke.
“That changed my whole thought,” Duran said. He told a producer at “The Voice” that he had to leave the studio and go to the hospital. “I was going to pull out of the competition.”
At the hospital, Tosti was insistent. “When she came to, she said, ‘You need to go back and audition.’”
Back at “The Voice,” “They gave me a spot on the last day of auditions,” Duran said.
He made the most of it. Within 30 seconds of Duran launching into a soulful rendition of Leon Bridges’ “River,” all four judges of NBC’s “The Voice” had turned their chairs and were watching the performance in rapt attention.
“It was pretty shocking, actually,” Duran had said during an interview after the broadcast of the blind audition in October 2019.
As was indicated by the chair-turn, judges Blake Shelton, John Legend, Kelly Clarkson and Gwen Stefani all wanted Duran on their team.
“It kind of blew me away,” Duran said. “I was just trying to complete the song. I didn’t want to get too excited and forget where I was.”
The judges gave him a standing ovation.
“I’d love to be your coach, dude,” said Shelton, who praised Duran’s tone and stage presence. The other judges had similar words of praise (“I’d love to work with you,” Legend said), but Duran chose Shelton.
Tosti, who is originally from Douglas, is “doing well now,” Duran said. The couple live together in Austin. The stroke had been been brought on by pulmonary hypertension. “It can be monitored,” Duran said.
The two met in Worcester when Duran was playing a show at Valentino’s on Shrewsbury Street. “We started talking on one of my breaks and we just kind of hit it off from there.”
Among the many emotions in play at the blind audition was the meaning behind Duran’s choice of the song, “River.”
Duran’s performance was in memory of his late parents. He had discovered “River” shortly after the death of his mother, Odette Duran, from breast cancer in 2018. Duran’s father, Ricardo Duran, who had nurtured his interest in music, tragically took his own life in 2012.
The song, with the repeated line, “Take me to your river,” is about “coming out of a dark place,” Duran said. “I think the best songs are when the artist has a connection to the song, so I thought that would be a good fit.”
His parents were originally from Guatemala and settled in Grafton to raise their family.
“I went out there singing the song thinking about them. It was a performance in memory to them, and I couldn’t be happier as a tribute to them,” Duran said.
Duran graduated from Grafton High School and Berklee College of Music in Boston.
“As long as I can remember I wanted to be a musician,” he said. His father was a musician who taught him to play guitar, he said.
Duran was a member of the Worcester band The Blue Light Bandits, and was involved with creating Songs For Hope, a local benefit concert for the American Foundation Of Suicide Prevention. A regular winner at the Worcester Music Awards presented by Pulse Magazine, he was named Best Male Vocalist at the 2019 awards at the Palladium.
But with the death of his parents, “It was very difficult to move on and try to be to be positive after that,” Duran said.
“But I think it comes to the point where it’s sink or swim. I continued to perform concerts, continued to write, and after my mom passed, I decided to move to Austin and give it a 100 percent shot.”
Austin is known for its eclectic live-music scene centered around country, blues and rock and has launched many musicians to stardom.
But as he made the move, “I had nothing really lined up,” Duran said.
On his second day in Austin he started walking into venues on the city’s historic entertainment district on Sixth Street. One bar owner told him to
“I think for people, especially in my field of work, momentum is a big thing for up and coming artists. So I think it definitely affected me,” Duran said of the pandemic. PROMOTIONAL PHOTO
Duran
Continued from Page 16
“come in Sunday.”
The owner subsequently “took me up and down the street and I had a full week of work the following week.”
Duran started to average five shows a week in Austin.
A representative of “The Voice” heard about Duran and asked him to audition in Austin. From that he received an invitation to the blind auditions in front of the show’s judges in Los Angeles.
After “River,” Shelton told Duran that he has a river at his place in Oklahoma. “I would love to take you to it.”
The good vibes would reverberate week after week, with Duran performing song selections such as “Valerie” by The Zutons, “She Talks to Angels” by The Black Crowes, and a scintillating rendition of Tom Petty’s “Runnin’ Down a Dream.” When he performed his original song, “A Woman Like Her,” it topped the iTunes charts in all genres.
Gwen Stefani declared, “Ricky, you have this star quality.”
Duran said he was in touch with Sam James during his run on “The Voice.”
“We’re good friends. We played a bunch of shows in the New England area. I was calling him when I was on the show. He was all excited for me,” Duran said.
Worcester area singers have previously done well in the competition. Worcester native Alisan Porter was the winner in 2016, and Ryleigh Modig of Spencer had a good run on the show earlier this year.
Country and pop star Billy Gilman of Rhode Island was a season runner-up on “The Voice” in 2016. Gilman will be the musical headline performer at the Pet Rock Festival Sept. 12 in North Grafton, near Duran’s former neck of the woods.
“He’s a great friend,” Gilman said of Duran. “We text quite a bit. He’s awesome. We all know his singing, and then when he plays his guitar, it’s like on another planet. It’s fantastic.”
Parties were held locally in support of Duran during his run on “The Voice,” and his social media following rocketed skyward.
“It was something else. At the time it’s this wave of friends and fans that reach out to you. Hundreds of messages a day that I couldn’t respond to,” Duran said.
In the end, Duran lost out to season winner Jake Hoot of Corpus Christi, Texas (Team Kelly).
“The Voice” top prize includes cash and a recording contract.
Duran said he had “some mixed feelings” about the outcome.
It would be nice to say he was a the winner of “The Voice,” he said, but on the other hand, he had heard stories of dissatisfaction among some previous winners about the way they were treated artistically by the designated recording label.
Alisan Porter said in a 2019 interview with the Telegram & Gazette that the fact it didn’t work out was not a problem with “The Voice” but “a label issue … They wouldn’t produce an album for me …They wanted to mold and shape me in what they want, and I was already molded into what I was.”
Duran didn’t want that to happen to him.
“Coming in second, I was happy to be there up to the last minute,” Duran said.
Then he headed into 2020.
“I think for people, especially in my field of work, momentum is a big thing for up-andcoming artists. So I think it definitely affected me,” Duran said of the pandemic.
After the March 27, 2020, show at The Hanover Theatre, there would have likely been a tour, but “it wasn’t happening.”
But Duran’s been dong fine, he said.
“I used that time to get in the studio and write some new music.”
His song “She Closed Her Eyes,” a tribute to his mother released in December 2020, had a great fan response that brought the track to the Number One spot on the iTunes Singer/Songwriter chart.
“It does something for people. It’s a powerful, moving song,” Duran said.
In June he released the romantic single “Star,” an ode to Tosti.
Tosti had jokingly told Duran, “‘Oh, you haven’t written a song about me,’” Duran said. “And then this song popped into my head.”
The release of “Star” prompted a story in People magazine.
“I really liked that song,” Duran said of “Star,” noting that he’s just finished recording a music video of the single.
Working out of Arlyn Studios in Austin, Duran said at this point, “I have an album’s worth of music recorded.” So for sure, “I’ll have at least an EP (released) by the end of the year.”
The music he’s been working on is “singer-songwriter material,” but looking ahead a bit further, he would like to be developing music “that’s more rock-based … Performing rock music, that’s where my heart really lies. I’m really excited to finally perform,” Duran said. in Austin, Duran’s also been performing at private functions during the pandemic, he said. And there have been live streams. “I’m performing here and there as I can. I’ve made a lot of connections.”
But at his long-anticipated show at The Hanover Theatre Sept. 18, Duran will not be celebrating an end of the pandemic.
In fact, The Hanover Theatre recently announced protocols through Nov. 25:
“Face coverings MUST be worn at all times in all areas of the theatre, regardless of vaccination status.
“All patrons ages 12 and over MUST present either proof of full vaccination or negative COVID-19 test in order to enter the theatre. When accompanying a vaccinated adult, children under 12 are allowed to enter. When accompanying an unvaccinated adult, children 12 and under must present proof of negative COVID-19 test to enter,” The Hanover Theatre states.
The Sept. 18 show will be performed without an intermission, but there will “Meet and Greet” opportunities.
“I’m hoping I can get momentum back and Hanover can be the start of an upcoming tour. I’m working with a booking agency, booking shows in different states. Right now it’s weekend stops because things are up in the air right now,” Duran said.
Still, fingers crossed. “As far as it’s viable to go on a fullfledged tour, that’s the plan.”
Thankyouforthenominationof BestLocalSportsTeam, andforwelcomingushome. Love, YourWooSox
