During her run on the London stage, Prince came to see the show, and invited her to perform with him at an after-hours club where he was holding court. Every night for a month, between the hours of 1-7AM, she would do a number with him and his band. "I didn't know that many songs," says Francis, "because my background was in gospel. But he urged me to listen to Miles Davis, to Rufus-to lots of classic music. The whole experience was like being outside my body-was this really happening to me?"
Back in the States, Francis had the opportunity to sing with gospel greats CeCe Winans and Shirley Caesar-two of her lifelong inspirations-in a production of Born To Sing at Madison Square Garden. It was another dream come true, as well as a major turning point for Francis. Stellar notices for her performance drew a call from an old friend who was the casting director for the Broadway smash Smokey Joe's Café. "He said, ‘I think you're ready,'" remembers Francis.
She joined the cast as an understudy in 1995, and later stepped into the lead role when B.J. Crosby left the show. "To this day," says Francis, "she's one of the most amazing sopranos I've ever heard. A lot of people just couldn't sing those same notes. No one could fill her shoes, but I was honored to have the chance to carry on her tradition-I was also scared to death." Francis went on to make her own memorable mark as a celebrated cast member in what eventually became the longest-running musical revue on Broadway. Her credits on the Great White Way also include parts in Street Corner Symphony and the hit musical Footloose, in which she originated the lead role of Rusty.
Francis left Broadway in 2001 to move to Los Angeles and explore a career in acting. Her credits include roles in the network television series Third Watch, Fastlane, Yes, Dear and Strong Medicine. "I love every aspect of the entertainment industry, being an artist is the most amazing thing ever. But my first passion is singing, and I realized that what I really needed to do was make a record."
Barbour was nominated for the Drama Desk, Drama League and Outer Critics Awards for Best Actor in a Musical for his portrayal of Sydney Carton in the Broadway musical version of A Tale of Two Cities, and won the Sarasota Magazine Best Actor Award for the Asolo Rep pre-Broadway production. He has starred on Broadway in such Tony-Award winning shows as Stephen Sondheim's Assassins, Disney's Beauty and the Beast as The Beast, Carousel as Billy Bigelow, Urinetown as Officer Lockstock and as Edward Rochester in Jane Eyre (Drama League Award nomination). He also appeared in the Broadway production of Cyrano and the national tour of The Secret Garden.
On screen he has appeared in the pilots of "The District," "Just Shoot Me" and "Flashpoint" to appearances on "Sex and the City," "Ed," "That's Life," "Some Enchanted Evening: Celebrating Oscar Hammerstein" (PBS), "Beauty and the Beast: A Concert on Ice" (CBS), the PBS mini-series "American Experience: John & AbiGail Adams" (playing Thomas Jefferson) and the upcoming film version of A Tale of Two Cities for public television. Film credits include Alchemy (Tribeca Film Festival and ABC Family) starring opposite Tom Cavanagh and Sarah Chalke; Adam Sandler's Eight Crazy Nights, Waiting for Lefty, The Tell-Tale Heart and Twinkle Toes with Sally Kirkland.
