Javier Colon showing what he can bring to the stage

Javier Colon may be best known for his winning voice on “The Voice,” but he’s busy now hitting the road to showcase his songwriting and performance abilities.

“The new album is moving along, and I am still touring to support the shows,” he said. “It’s not the same as it used to be. Sales are just not what they used to be in the music business.”

The album “Gravity,” his fourth and first for Concord Records, and he will hit the stage Saturday at Thornton Winery as part of the 2016 Champagne Jazz Concert Series.

“We put this album together over the course of a year,” he said. “Some songs I had written before this partnership with Concord. We weren’t looking to fit the songs into a particular box. I know from previous ones, you get to a spot where you need a ballad here or an up tempo one there. There were times it felt as though it was forcing me to do something I didn’t want to do.”

That changed with the latest record.

“I had autonomy to do what I wanted to and could do,” he said.

Colon got his start in music in Connecticut, where his father was in the business.

“He was in the radio business, a Spanish-language radio DJ in Hartford,” he said. “He’d been doing that since I was 8 years old and he partnered up and bought a station in Bridgeport becoming the first Dominican owner. So, the music was always on as I was growing up. Every moment of my childhood the radio was on and that music was the background noise of my childhood.”

The singers rapidly influenced him.

“I would listen to these crooners and id try to imitate them, and it just appealed to me,” he said. “It was how I was infused into the music.”

Of course, his big claim to fame came with “The Voice,” where he was the winner of the very first contest.

“I was at a place before the show where I’d had one record with Capitol Record and got dropped,” he said. “I rode the wave as far as I could. I did some touring here and there, especially college shows based on my previous deal. The well had dried up in 2011, and I had some producer friends, the same guys who got me my first deal.”

The problem was no one was very interested in signing him.

“I thought I had a deal with Blue Note and I did a showcase for them and I really thought I was going to be signed but they passed,” he said. “It was like a dagger. I had a wife and two daughters and I wasn’t making enough money to keep it all going and be a responsible adult and father. I had to do whatever it took to make ends meet and if that meant I wasn’t doing music anymore, then that had to be it.”

Two weeks later, he received an email about “The Voice.”

“I didn’t want to do it at first, and I figured it might be a bad show,” he said. “They had sent some videos of the Dutch version and it was a success there. I didn’t know if America would like it. My brother talked me into it. He told me I didn’t have anything going on and to not pass up the opportunity. I figured I might as well give it a shot.”

He enjoyed working with talent coaches and the experience, but there was some trouble on the horizon.

“You know, after ‘The Voice’ I did have to fight to be the person I was on the show,” he said. “I sang certain songs, and I really got to be myself on the show. When I got off they were trying to morph me into something I wasn’t.”

But with “Gravity,” it’s a different story.

There was some back and forth, and they won some and I won some,” he said. “I could put songs on the record that I felt strongly about. And yeah, there was a couple I might not have put on there but I thought while they maybe not my favorite, there was give and take.”

Regardless of what happens with the record, he plans to keep going.

“I’m going to keep grinding it out because I love this,” he said.