John Milton Wesley: Singer/ Songwriter

Wesley is known as a “soulful” performer who is almost as much fun to “watch” in live performance (since he writes and arranges all of his own words and music) as he is to experience vocally. After all he is an HBCU (Tougaloo College) grad, who once performed with Duke Ellington and his orchestra at Carnegie Hall (April 4th, 1968) when Wesley was 20 years old.

So don’t be surprised if his sound reminds you of: Nat King Cole, Curtis Mayfield, Maxwell, Lionel Richie, or Kem, or “Sting”. Or that his musical phrasing on the keyboard is somewhere between, Duke Ellington and Dave Brubeck, Michael McDonald and Ramsey Lewis, and that’s before he breaks out his Latin repertoire. He has a rich original signature. It is music inspired by love and survival delivered across Wesley’s wide vocal range. His message arrives on a bed of Jazz, R&B, “Old School Soul,” Afro-Cuban, Classical Jazz, and Latin sounds. His lyrics celebrate African American culture, women, unconditional love, the triumph of the human spirit, and an unyielding faith.

John Milton Wesley’s Musical Bio

John Milton Wesley is an author and “singer songwriter” although he is better known for his published prose and poetry. He moved to Columbia, MD in 1973 from Mississippi to pursue a career in marketing and media. He was first published in the Columbia Flier newspaper in 1974.

Since then, his work has been published in nine prose and poetry anthologies in the U.S. and abroad, translated into Spanish, and Arabic, and his music is now played in countries around the world. He has remained on the :(link hidden) “Top 20” performers list in the DC, Maryland, and Virginia area for the past four years. He writes, arranges and performs all of his own music.

His “by-line” is also familiar to readers of Essence Magazine, or the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Afro–American Newspapers, and across social media where he blogs via The Huffington Post, and on (link hidden). However, Wesley’s greatest passion has remained in his music since it began in church and the school choir in his hometown of Ruleville, MS. There he first learned to play on an old piano in his grandmothers “front room”. Following her death in 1963, Wesley moved to Jackson, MS where he met and worked with a budding group of young singers and song writers in a little studio that eventually became Malaco Studios.

Wesley’s “breakout” musical performance occurred at Merriweather Post Pavilion in 2008 for the 40th Birthday anniversary celebration of his adopted hometown Columbia, MD. That same year he was invited to perform his “spoken word” during the annual meeting of the National Association of Black Journalist (NABJ) convention in Las Vegas, and later at The Bowery Poetry Project in New York. Other venues for his work include Stanford University, The College of Notre Dame, Ursinus College, in Collegeville, PA, Singers in Baltimore, Annie’s Place, Temple Hills Maryland where he opened for Nigerian Soul Singer “Kuku,” and on National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered”, and on April 20, 2012 he opened for comedian “Sinbad” in Baltimore at the Marriott Inner Harbor East Hotel. In June of 2012 he performed with poet Nikki Giovanni in a special salute to Maryland Poet Laureate, Lucile Clifton at Baltimore’s Enoch Pratt Free Library. Then in November of 2012 Wesley’s received rave reviews for his performance for the 100th birthday celebration for African American legend Gordon Parks’ in Washington, DC.

Wesley was the “opening” performer for Baltimore’s “Jazz on the Waterfront” celebration in September 2013 featuring legendary sax man Gary Bartz upon his triumphant return home to Baltimore after a ten year hiatus. In January of 2013, Wesley performed for his first Inaugural Ball at the Atlas Theater in Washington, DC on January 20th, 2013.

On May 3rd, 2014 Wesley returned to Baltimore’s heralded Pennsylvania Avenue where he opened the 2014 “Jazz on the Avenue” series at the Avenue Bakery’s “sound garden”.

Wesley is known as a “soulful” performer who is almost as much fun to “watch” in live performance (since he writes and arranges all of his own words and music) as he is to experience vocally. After all he is an HBCU (Tougaloo College) grad, who once performed with Duke Ellington and his orchestra at Carnegie Hall (April 4th, 1968) when Wesley was 20 years old.

So don’t be surprised if his sound reminds you of: Nat King Cole, Curtis Mayfield, Maxwell, Lionel Richie, or Kem, or “Sting”. Or that his musical phrasing on the keyboard is somewhere between, Duke Ellington and Dave Brubeck, Michael McDonald and Ramsey Lewis, and that’s before he breaks out his Latin repertoire. He has a rich original signature. It is music inspired by love and survival delivered across Wesley’s wide vocal range. His message arrives on a bed of Jazz, R&B, “Old School Soul,” Afro-Cuban, Classical Jazz, and Latin sounds. His lyrics celebrate African American culture, women, unconditional love, the triumph of the human spirit, and an unyielding faith.

I am a published author whose work has appeared in nine (prose and poetry) anthologies in English, Arabic, and Spanish. My current writing is included in “The Arab American Handbook”, edited by Nawar Shora, for Cune Press, Seattle, WA.

I am also a “9/11” survivor, having lost my fiance (Sarah Miller Clark) on flight #77, that crashed into the Pentagon on 9/11/01.

I perform on Yamaha pianos, using a BOSE Sound System. I have available a 128 slide (Power Point) visual biographical backdrop for my performances. I provide all of my own equipment. Do not loan out during performances. I f my equipment is used as PA system, an additional fee of $100.00 is added to performance cost.