October 2001 ~ Featuring Josh Garner
As I travel throughout the country with the Dixie Echoes, I have the opportunity to spend time with a lot of my piers in Southern Gospel Music. I have now been with the group for three years and have made many great friends, and this article will be my informal way of taking the fans behind the scenes with their favorite singers and musicians and getting to know a little about their start in the industry. I have friends of all ages on the road, but since I am twenty one years old, you can probably guess that most of my friends are close to my age group.

Who better to feature in my first article than one of my best friends, Josh Garner. Josh joined the Florida Boys in October of 1999, singing lead. Les Beasley is still with the group playing bass guitar, doing the emcee work, and singing a couple of songs each night, then he turns the stage over to, in my opinion, the best singer to come along in Southern Gospel Music in a very long time!

Josh is originally from Fairfield, IL, and now lives in Pensacola, Florida. I first met him in Nashville, Tennessee, and we became friends. We would joke with each other saying that we would be in a group together oneday. Well, when I was a senior in high school, I joined a group out of Laurel, MS, named "Master's Voice". When they told me that they had just hired Josh Garner from Illinois, I was in disbelief. We traveled together for about a year in that group (along with Tim Duncan - who is now the popular bass singer of Poet Voices), until I accepted the position of playing piano with the Dixie Echoes Quartet in Pensacola, FL.

For my first year with the Dixie Echoes, I still lived in Louisiana and traveled each week to Florida. Josh and I would stay in contact by phone just about every week. Since joining the Dixie Echoes, I had became good friends with the Florida Boys, and with their bass singer Gene McDonald. In October of 1999, at the Suwannee River Jubilee, Gene and I went to the Waffle House for breakfast and he asked me if I knew of any lead singers. I never imagined that Les would stop singing, but I told Gene that I knew "The best lead singer there is", and that I though he might be interested in the job. So when I got back home that Monday, I gave Josh a call and he went that week for an audition, and got the job!

Josh came and lived with my family in Louisiana until he was able to get a place in Pensacola, then last year I moved to Pensacola. We may not be with the same group, but we work with each other all of the time, and usually visit every week, along with other members of the Florida Boys and Dixie Echoes.

I was proud to see Josh win the Horizon Individual Award during the Singing News Fan Awards. I think he is very deserving. Now, I'm from Louisiana and Josh is from Illinois, so that just goes to show you that the Lord still has his hand on friendships too! It is highly possible that we might both still be involved in the same groups that we are in today, had we not met. But after reading the story above, I think that God knew what he was doing in carrying out this plan.

I feel like Josh has a bright future in Gospel Music, and would personally vouch for him living a good Christian life and being a good example to others. If you haven't seen him yet with the Florida Boys, make plans to go to one of their concerts soon. This guy will flat lay some singing on you!