San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Valley native makes the cut on ‘The Voice’
Frank Garcia competed on “La Voz Kids” when he was 11. Now he’s made the big leagues.
Garcia, 19, won a spot on Team Dan + Shay on “The Voice” Monday night with a soaring, emotional cover of Adele’s “Love in the Dark.”
The country duo, Season 25’s new judges, turned their double-wide chair about 15 seconds into Garcia’s performance. None of the other judges — John Legend, Reba McEntire or Chance the Rapper — made the turn.
“I was blown away by your performance,” Dan Smyers said. “Anytime anybody chooses to sing an Adele song is big shoes to fill, and you absolutely crushed it.”
Shay Mooney taunted the rest of the judges for passing on Garcia.
“I can’t believe you guys,” he said. “You look so dumb right now.”
A student at Columbia University, Garcia is from Roma in the Rio Grande Valley. His father is Francisco “Paco” Garcia, a member of the Latin Grammy-winning norteño group Costumbre.
He grew up playing mariachi music, which led to his appearances on the Estrella TV singing competition show “Tengo Talento Mucho Talento,” as well as “La Voz Kids.” He made it to the battle rounds on Season 4 of the Telemundo series.
In his video biography, Garcia talked about his move from performing mariachi to R&B: “I feel like it really helped me embrace myself.”
“Even though I love mariachi music, and it’s my culture, it did feel very restrictive,” he said. “I just couldn’t be who I wanted to be.”
He also talked about the challenges of growing up gay on the border.
“Since I was little, I knew that I was gay,” he said. “Because we do live right next to the border ... there does tend to be a lot of conservative ideologies and traditional views.
“It was really hard for me to grow up. Most of my life, I felt like I couldn’t be myself.”
The support and love of his parents when he came out made all the difference.
“Having their support, I was finally free,” he said. “I finally feel that I’m beautiful. I’m comfortable with who I am. I know that not every Latino gay kid has this, and so I’m just so thankful.”
“The Voice” airs Monday and Tuesday nights on NBC and streams on Peacock.