Spectacular Class Jontavious Willis

• 1 Low Down Ways 03:49
• 2 The Blues is Dead? 03:04
• 3 Resting on My Mind 03:24
• 4 Daddy's Dough 02:28
• 5 Friend Zone Blues 03:32
• 6 Jon's Boogie 01:55
• 7 Take Me to the Country 02:56
• 8 Liquor 03:14
• 9 Long Winded Woman 02:33
• 10 The World is in a Tangle 03:19
• Total Runtime 30:14

Info for Spectacular Class

Every generation or so, a young bluesman bursts onto the scene and sends a jolt through the blues community. Jontavious Willis may just have that effect on people. The 22-year-old rising multi-instrumentalist is set to release Spectacular Class on April 5, 2019.

Through original lyrics written by Willis himself, the gifted musician delivers a timeless album that features dynamic vocals and all types of blues: Delta, Piedmont, Texas, and Gospel. His stand-out fingerpicking, flat-picking, and slide prowess are also on display.

GRAMMY award-winning artists Taj Mahal and Keb’ Mo’ played an active role in producing Spectacular Class with Taj Mahal credited as Executive Producer and Keb’ Mo’ as the Producer.

Hailing from Greenville, Georgia, Willis grew up singing Gospel music at the Mount Pilgrim Baptist Church with his grandfather. Since an early age, he had the talent and passion for the music and the ability to sharpen his skills fast. At the age of 14, he came across a YouTube video of Muddy Waters playing “Hoochie Coochie Man” and was instantly hooked on the blues.

He got his much-needed break from the living legend Taj Mahal, who described him as the “Wonderboy” and “the Wunderkind.” In 2015, Mahal asked Willis to play on stage with him. That appearance resulted in a roaring response from the audience and led Willis to bigger stages and broader opportunities, including an opening slot at select shows along the TajMo tour, featuring his musical mentors Taj Mahal and Keb’ Mo’.

Many fans of Willis regard him as an old soul. His style of playing the instruments and his voice touches the very roots of country blues. He brings back the true soul of the music. A newspaper headline once called him a “70-year-old bluesman in a 20-year-old body.”Spectacular Class is the follow-up release to his debut album, Blue Metamorphosis, which was released in 2016 and garnered him rave reviews from such notable magazines as Living Blues and Blues & Rhythm. In 2018, the album earned recognition by the Blues Foundation through their International Blues Challenge, where he was honored with the Best Self-Produced CD Award.

“Only a few like him emerge every decade or so . . . the real deal.” (Frank Matheis, Living Blues Magazine

That’s my Wonderboy, the Wunderkind...” (Taj Mahal)

Jontavious Willis, vocals, guitar

Jontavious Willis
Sitting on a deep cushioned couch in the family living room while resting his hands on his first acoustic guitar, twenty-one-year-old Jontavious Willis pauses a moment, thoughtfully considering how to describe his sound. His friends and family call him “Quon.” Two time Grammy Award winner and blues legend, Taj Mahal, deems him as “My Wonderboy, the Wunderkind,” while others regard him as a testament to this generation of blues being alive and well.

A Sunday evening spent resting at his family’s home in Greenville, Georgia, in-between college classes and touring, Willis, humbled to share his musical journey, eases back to readjust his hands along the guitar, smiling as he begins strumming and singing along.

Where they say roots run deep in the South, Willis, who was born in LaGrange, Georgia and raised in Greenville, finds his musical roots running through the depths of Georgia to the front of the church where he began singing alongside his grandfather.

It was there in church, singing gospel music with his “Granddad” at the age of three where his passion for music began.

Though his passion for music began at an early age, it was not until later in his childhood that he learned to play an instrument. Beginning with the piano then moving to the trombone, Willis found his true love on December 24, 2010, when his dad granted his Christmas wish for an electric guitar.

A self-started musician whose raw musical talent expands an impressive repertoire of piano, trombone, harmonica, banjo and guitar, Willis was awestruck with the electric guitar, practicing for two months until February when sensing he was “ playin’ pretty good -not awesome, but it was good enough “ to purchase what he now points to sitting nearby on the couch as his first acoustic guitar.

From there, Willis took his musical passion and talents full circle in returning to church – this time with a guitar. Meanwhile playing music in several churches, he began playing the blues at home, moving to the public scene in 2012. Fast forward three years to 2015 where he played alongside a man with connections to one of Atlanta’s concert and festival venue hotbeds, Piedmont Park. ...

This album contains no booklet.