By Sym Posey
Before he was known as “D. Smooth”, he was “David Anthony”. Before he was “David Anthony”, he was just David Mitchell from Mulga, Alabama, just 20 minutes from Birmingham.
“I didn’t go by D. Smooth at first. Nobody knew about D. Smooth but people from my hometown. I would go by David Anthony because that was my middle name. I felt like it sounded nice and elegant. “
A Minor High School Alum, Mitchell said, “I always knew I could sing, but it was never at the forefront of my life.”
It came to the forefront when he sang his heart out on NBC’S The Voice 23rd season. Since finishing a respectable third, “D. Smooth” continues to perform in Birmingham appearing alongside other local acts like Halo Wheeler. The two are both featured in Encore Theatre and Gallery’s Soul of Christmas: A Holiday Musical Revue from December 21- 23. https://ticketstripe.com/soulofchristmas2023
“Appearing on the Voice was random,” Mitchell said. It wasn’t something he saw himself doing.
His first audition was done at the height of the pandemic. “A friend of mine said, ‘you should try out.’ I was like ‘no.’ I knew different judges on the show, like Usher, [saw some clips online] but I have never seen a complete season. It wasn’t something I thought about doing. “
Mitchell,26, said his friend signed him up anyway and kept telling him “All you have to do is sit in your camera and sing a song and they will tell you ‘yay’ or ‘nay.’ I ended up doing it and I received a call back.”
“They emailed me at the top of 2021 asking for my singing videos, so I decided to do it. After that I blinked, and I was in California.”
Mitchell said, “I almost took stage at the Season 21 Blind Auditions, but the teams filled up. They sent me home.”
Mitchell would return to audition for the reality television series two more times before he made it onto the show’s season 23.
“The athlete in me didn’t want to give up. It set a fire in me,” he said.
His cover of Ed Sheeran’s “Perfect”, caused Kelly Clarkson to turn her chair around. Clarkson would be his coach and mentor the entire season.
Mitchell said his most memorable moment on the show was dueting with Clarkson.
In high school, Mitchell spent much of his time juggling various extracurricular activities that involved academics, athletics, and music. As a singer in the jazz band, he was able to connect with multiple people that would come back around full circle as he continued to scope out the live music scene during the early stages of his singing career.
He attended Faulker University in Montgomery, Alabama but only stayed three semesters. “When I graduated high school, I had a couple of offers to play football… I stayed there [college] for a year in half and then I came back to Birmingham, and I started working.”
Mitchell said his first gig was a construction job. “I was a broke college student; I didn’t have a car. Once I started working, I had the opportunity to buy one [a car] so I saved all my checks,” he recalled. Adding, “It was my first leap of faith. Once I got the car, I knew that job was going to be temporary because my mother wanted me to continue to pursue school and I could not do both. “
Because the job could not work with his school schedule, he “quit that job and started working at a [retail store] while taking courses at Lawson State Community College.”
While working there [retail store], he got connected to the live music scene at 19 years old. “I had a little goatee, so I was able to sneak into bars and see the live performances” said Mitchell jokingly.
“I thought ‘wow, I could do that. I can sing, I can play that [piano]. ‘I just got attracted to the music scene… I had some friends from high school, band guys, who continued to do music when they got to college. They would call me and ask me to do weddings and such. I started making a few little bucks doing hard nose gigging.”
“I always knew I could sing, but it was never at the forefront of my life… I always had a safe route because I felt like that is what I was taught. Go to school, get you a good job, get your pension, make sure your 401k is straight, and your children are good. “
Another Leap of Faith
Mitchell said that “safe route” led him to view his life “from an entrepreneurial standpoint.
“I started to pay attention to the things we weren’t taught in school like generating wealth, not living paycheck to paycheck, all the financial literary aspects of life that the other folks know that our community should know but are not taught” he said.
Mitchell maintained a steady routine of school and work but says he also struggled with his mental health. While dealing with personal family matters, he also dealt with the loss of childhood friends.
“I was going through a depression. A lot of brokenness was going on around that time. I felt like God was telling me to get out of Birmingham for a second. I felt like I needed to be on my own and grow. “
Michell decided to take another leap of faith.
“People thought I was going to be a doctor. I am a first-generation college student, there were so many expectations of me to do this and complete it. School just wasn’t my route though. I started to understand what I wanted in life.”
After finding success in Birmingham’s live music scene, Mitchell’s passion for music ultimately led him to see where it could take him.
“I’m A Hustler Baby…”
Mitchell returned to Montgomery not as a college student, but this time with his friend- Ramone Lacey. The two would become roommates sharing a one-bedroom apartment. For almost four months Mitchell was “living on an air mattress.”
He eventually found work as a fitness trainer to make ends meet.
“Montgomery is very small. There is only one Planet Fitness there… Everybody goes to the gym at least once and me being the trainer, and I was the face people had to see…. You start to know people… I had a lot of interaction with a lot of influential people that would come through Montgomery from working at that gym… I would sing in my [fitness] classes, play my music, or just be humming.
That led Mitchell to hanging out with those same influential people. “So, I started going out and seeing what the city had to offer. “
He found out about B.B. Kings Montgomery, a live music club that is a recreation of the Iconic BB King’s Blues Club located on Beale Street in Memphis Tennessee. “I knew who BB King was, but I had never heard of the venue. “
“I went down there, alone, fresh off work, wrinkled shirt, jogging pants, I looked like a bum” he remembered.
“Long story short, it was Apollo night, I went up there and did my thing,” he recalls, “I had been groomed in live music for a bit, so I was able to just tell their band what to do and we just rolled with it. “
“As soon got off the stage, the operations manager gave me his card. I thought he did that for everybody… It would’ve never happened if I didn’t work that job at Planet Fitness I thought. “
Mitchell said he” didn’t take home the win. But I did end up getting on the calendar.”
Being the new kid on the block, Mitchell was grateful for the exposure.
“It was a hustle. I started on Wednesday or Thursday. Eventually I was on the calendar every month. “
Exposure continued to grow.
“God moved on my behalf a lot. He told me to shut up and be still. I had to sit back and take it and get better at the same time so that I was ready when my name was called upon. I was feeling this fire in my heart that I could show these people who I am and what kind of artist I can be.”
By 2020, Mitchell was working three jobs- still training at planet fitness, balancing gigs, and managing at UPS.
Mitchell recalls it being a “grueling time because I was working three jobs. I got promoted to being a manager quickly. After that, I quit my training job.”
Mitchell credits God for keeping him employed at a time when he was still trying to figure himself out.
Mitchell said as he continued to learn more about the (music) industry as his “hustle increased and changed in different ways. That’s when I started to get into more solo gigs and making noise in the city. “
Asked what the future has in store, Mitchell said he hopes to be a “financially free, man of God, who travels abroad sharing my gift.”
Mitchell said his musical influence has always been Jamie Foxx. “I believe we share a lot of the same qualities and characteristics. [I] always have been talents within the performance or entertainment world, plus I’m authentic and most of the time on the spot. If given the opportunity, he said, “Tank “would be the artist he could work with if he could work with anybody.
David “D Smooth” Mitchell, Halo Wheeler in in Encore Theatre and Gallery’s Soul of Christmas: A Holiday Musical Revue from December 21- 23. For tickets visit
https://ticketstripe.com/soulofchristmas2023
