Idol Chatter & Voice Views

Josh King of American Idol Season 23

Idol officially kicks off its new season Sunday, March 9. Season 4 champ Carrie Underwood will Lionel Richie and Luke Bryan at the judges’ table.

A sneak peek will air Sunday night on ABC after the Oscars.

Here’s more about Josh:

* He’s a singer-songwriter from Charlotte, N.C., who plays guitar, harmonica and piano.

* In addition to performing in the U.S., he’s done a good deal of traveling, performing multiple times in the UK and Dubai, judging from his social media.

* Josh doesn’t appear to have released original music yet. But he has snippets of a couple of originals on Instagram and says he’s working on recording music in the alt-pop vein. You can check out one of those snippets below.

* As a child, Joshua was mentored by Grammy winning blues musician James Cotton, who died in 2017. On Facebook, Josh encourages everyone to watch a bipic on Cotton “Bonnie Blue: James Cotton’s Life in the Blues.”

* Writes Joshua: He often called me his musical grandson. When I was a child, Cotton pass passed down a big legacy and directive to me. I have been working hard all my life to rise to his challenges and giant expectations.” One of his Facebook posts shows 11-year-old Josh playing harmonica for Cotton

* Since childhood, Josh has also been volunteering as a performer at local hospitals and at the Charlotte Douglas International Airport, where he plays the grand piano in the airport’s atrium.

* And at one point, his mother had a health scare of her own. On Feb. 8, Josh posted the following: “It’s always great to perform live for Atrium Health’s incredible team! I will forever be grateful to this team for beating back my mom’s cancer and taking care of my family.”

* Josh has been pretty low key about his Idol audition. He didn’t post about it until Feb. 25, long after most of his Season 23 colleagues.

Josh on social media:
Instagram
TikTok
Facebook
YouTube