DESOTO – Kim Washington is not only a DeSoto resident, but she is also part of a cast that recently won a National Emmy and a Critics Choice Award.
A Dallas native, Washington moved to DeSoto with her husband Don (a producer, musician and composer) in 2005.
Washington was a principal part in the cast of an Emmy winning television production called “Kimmel/Lear Live in Front of a Studio Audience: All in the Family/The Jeffersons.”
She sang with Academy Award winner, Jennifer Hudson. She, “American Idol” alum and singer, George Huff and Chadney Christle sang “The Jeffersons” theme song on the show.
The show aired nationally last year as an ABC Primetime Special.
“This special was viewed by a record 10.4 million viewers. It is currently showing on Hulu,” Washington adds.
She says being part of the cast from the award-winning show has helped her career.
“I have gotten more calls for events and I believe the only challenges so far is to make sure that I stay focused,” Washington said. “It can be challenging when you are a wife, mother and a business leader.”
The DeSoto singer said since childhood she always had the dream to do something in music. With that dream she was accepted to the Booker T. Washington High School for Performing and Visual Arts.
“This was where my music career actually began,” she explained. “It was there that we honed our crafts. We learned much needed skills that I still use today as a professional recording artist.” Washington also grew up singing in her church. She had many positions in the music department at her uncle’s church in the southern part of Dallas. Everything from organist to minister of music. From there she met and married her husband and her musical journey took a major turn.
“I feel that my passion grew deeper when we married because he was also a musician and had some of the same aspirations,” she explained. “We eventually moved to Atlanta where he was the organist for the mega-church, New Birth Missionary Baptist Church under the late Bishop Eddie L Long.”
She said it was there too she finally came to the realization of who she herself was as an artist.
“I had the opportunity to sing with gospel greats like Darwin Hobbs, William Murphy and Bebe Winans and those moments really shaped who I am today,” she said.
With singing and songwriting as her main hobbies and her grandmother, mother and husband as her greatest life influences, Washington said she lives by one motto.
“There’s always something to do. Never stand idle saying, ‘I don’t have anything to do.’ My reply to that is yes, you do,” she concluded.
And the beat goes on – currently she is working on a gospel music EP, which she said will likely be released in the Fall of 2020.
