When El Paso, Texas-born singer Valerie Ponzio’s audition for The Voice leaked early on social media last month, some of the first comments beneath the video, shouting emojis of praise at her for achieving the popular singing competition’s coveted “four-chair turn,” were from Vancouverites.
In fact, a few hundred local hearts were exploding as Gwen Stefani, Alicia Keys, Adam Levine and Blake Shelton took turns swivelling around in their judging chairs, each in awe of different aspects of Ponzio’s cover of the Johnny Cash scorcher “Ring of Fire.”
She wasn’t able to talk about it during the episode, but Ponzio desperately wanted to shout out her Vancouver fans and thank them for their support. She probably wouldn’t have caught the attention of the show’s producers without those copious north-of-the-border likes on YouTube and years of dedicated shares and encouragement. But the story of why the feisty Latina country singer pulls heartstrings in a city located almost 3,000 kilometres from her hometown is bittersweet. She might have been just another contestant if not for her brother, the late Bruce Randall ‘Randy’ Ponzio. You see, in his short life, Randy – a multi-talented musician, rising local star, and dedicated community activist – had spent the better part of a decade winning Vancouver’s heart himself.
The Ponzios’ Vancouver connection begins in the early 2000s, when Randy and his then-wife and three children decided to relocate from Kansas City to the Canadian West Coast. The charismatic singer/guitarist/producer quickly made a name for himself among the city’s open mic and gigging musicians as a lion – a big soul with a bigger voice who spread positive vibes through music. To know Randy was to know his music, and to know his music was to feel moved. I knew Randy well: He had the voice of a Sting understudy and the timing of a D’Angelo. Add to that his luchador-like personality and unstoppable work ethic, and he endeared himself to almost everyone he met in the industry. But he wasn’t the only talent in his family: Separated by miles and dramatically different lives, Val was sharpening her chops at the cutthroat Berklee College of Music in Boston, while Randy put his guitar lessons online, hustled for gigs, co-parented his kids, entered and won music competitions, and slowly built his following. He always made time for his littler sister, though, if she needed advice or a push, and he made sure that anyone who befriended him or followed him on YouTube or Facebook also knew about Val. In fact, he was the one who inspired her to start putting her music online, which garnered its own following and became the keystone for many of her successes later on.
If you spoke with Randy for more than a few minutes, you would have definitely heard praise for his talented younger sister. She’s the better guitar player, he’d boast proudly, between emphatic Spanish idioms. The firecracker in the family. Whenever she visited, he’d show her off to his circle of friends, and share her music at his open mics.
The last time Vancouver got to see Val, though, was when she and her family flew in from Texas to lay Randy to rest after his sudden and tragic passing in 2011, at the age of 35. By then, his hundreds of fans and friends felt like they had known her for years. When she returned a few months later, in the dark of winter, to appear at a star-studded memorial fundraiser show at the Commodore (organized by Randy’s friends to raise money for his children), it was like welcoming back a sister, and it brought the house to tears as the first few strands of healing began to mingle with tragedy and hope.
In the ensuing months, though, she almost lost the music – the gift Randy himself had given her, when he put that first guitar in her hands when they were kids – to despair, and it was, in part, thanks to the support of Randy’s Vancouver friends, his Vancouver “family”, that she persevered.
“When Randy was living there, it was special because my brother was up there, but it was also hard because my brother was up there and he was far away. We’d kind of been living our lives, but I remember when I visited […] everyone was so sweet,” Valerie recalls, when reached by Westender by phone. “And this was before he was really as known as he was in Vancouver. I think I was at music school at that point and everything was a bit more cutthroat, a bit more competitive – music was a bit of a grind – and people were just so welcoming at this one open mic. I couldn’t believe how sweet the people were, and encouraging, and that was my first musical taste [of Vancouver].
“And, of course, after he died, I was absolutely floored by how loving the city was and just how quickly it became one of the most special places in my heart, while also being one of the most tragic places in my heart,” she says, softly. “That’s where he died. And it’s been that kind of relationship with Vancouver since then.”
While Valerie’s time on The Voice has recently come to an end, her musical journey continues. The LA-based artist, 32, was en route to an opportunity in Nashville when we spoke, her bandmate fiancé piloting their car as she looked back on the past six years.
“Randy inspired art in the community, and the art community gave that back to him so abundantly when he died,” she says, wistfully. “And they didn’t just give it back to him, they gave it back to his family.
“I’m so happy [...], because Vancouver’s taking on a little bit of a different role in my mind now,” she continues. “It’s not just complete and total tragedy. This is my relationship: the tragedy, and now there’s a good time in my life, and I feel like the people of that city are still a part of it – part of the good times now. I feel like so many people from Vancouver supported me before the The Voice happened – obviously because of my brother – but, after, with my musical journey, I felt like people in Vancouver were supporting that part, too, which was a very hard and raw part for me, musically. And now, they’re so there. I feel the love. I constantly feel the love, in the big times and the small.”
• Randy left behind three young children, and donations for the Ponzio Children Fund can be made at randyponzio.com. Randy had just released his latest EP, For the People, on Nov. 8, 2011.
