Ok, so...it's been a real long time since I've blogged or placed a journal entry on the site. I am terrible with that I know. I promise to work on that forreal, y'all. This year has been a pretty good year for me & The joshua Trio. We did quite a few gigs on the road and had a blast! I opened for The Ohio Players & Parliament / Funkadelic this past summer! What a show, what an experience! It felt good to bring the Love & Faith Experience to a stage that size!
I've been working on finishing the sophmore album "Love & Faith: Vol. 2 A Wonderful Love". I really am almost done with it! The songs sound great. I think you all will be really pleased with results. The joshua Trio will be heading into the studio to start the group's long-awaited debut album soon.
I had a great oppotunity back in January to fly down to Spartanburg SC for a week to attend & be a part of the tech rehearsals for David E. Talbert's current stageplay production "What My Husband Doesn't Know" starring Clifton Davis, Michelle Williams, Brian White, Morris Chestnut & Ann Nesby along with a great supporting cast. It was an awesome experience. Plans are in the works for David and I to work together in the near future, so stay tuned!!!!
I also was given the awesome opportunity to open for The Ohio Players & Parliament / Funkadelic as apart of the Family Unity Day in the Park festival in July in my hometown of Cleveland OH. It was nothing short of amazing to share the stage with those acts. They have helped to shape my sound in many ways over the years through their music. It had been over a year since I did a Love & Faith Experience concert performance and the first on a stage of that size. We threw down!!! My goal: to get the message of God's goodness out & to set the pace for all the other acts to follow by getting the party started early, you hear me??!! :-) The crowd was with us from the intro until the finale, even requesting an encore!! We did all that in under 30 minutes! God is faithful. Everything that could go wrong prior to me & my band hitting the stage that 90 plus degree day did go wrong, but we pushed through it and when it came time to perform we were all in.
This year has also seen me make a return to the theater stage. I've been away from the theater for almost 8 years to focus on my career in music. I feel now is a good time re-introduce that side to the world. As I contemplated auditioning for a few things, my good friend & music partner Damon Taylor approached me about working on music production & songwriting for a few upcoming stageplays. I agreed and figured that may be the gist of what I'll be doing theater-wise until I got a call to do a reading for the leading man in a stageplay called "The Bridge of No Return" early this fall. I read for the part and got it! Very exciting to say the least. Not only was it a great script, but a great cast as well! The chemistry & energy was evident from the start and away we went!!I also ended up becoming the music supervisior for the play as well as writing & producing music for the production. Who knew?? The play is produced by Blacpanther Productions & written by Anwar Shahid who adapted the characters & story from the novel of the same name written by Stella Hall. The play stars Carla Marcelle as "Felicia Stanford", Myself as "Patrick Fitzgerald", Joe Little as "Winston Jefferson" and the supporting cast...unbelievable.