Early this year, my friend Jontavious Willis released a killer record, his debut, Blue Metamorphosis (link goes to store on his website). It’s a great blues record by any standard, considering he’s 21, it’s an exciting announcement of things to come. His combination of chops and taste, seriousness and fun strike me as the work of a giant talent nurtured by determined study. After thinking about the year past, it’s my favorite blues album, which is the same as saying it’s my favorite album of 2017. Here’s the opening cut. When people ask him why he sings those old blues songs, here’s his reply.

Here’s a link to my review just after it first came out (one thing I will add is that playing his “Tip Toe” is harder than it sounds—at present, I’ve given up, given it a rest anyway; I’m still growing and hope to be able to play it someday—Brian, I’d welcome a lesson on this kind of funky blues rhythm).

At first, I was just going to repost Jontavious Willis‘s just posted “Going Up the Country,” but I decided to make my comment a little more comprehensive (although it has a title and some lines in common with another song, I think it’s his song—I’ll let you know if I find out otherwise). But here’s the song.

This past summer, while he was touring as the opening act for Taj Mahal and Keb’ Mo’, I heard him solo at Central Park (great set but too short), then followed him to a cafe to hear him duet with brillint jazz pianist Arthur Migliazza. The next night he performed at the Monday night blues open mic at the New Amsterdam Musicians Association (usually referred to as NAMA), where he played a brilliant solo set. On Sunday, his duet on “Trouble in Mind” was on fire, so when I heard he was about to play it at his solo set, I caught it on my camera phone.

Here’s my playlist of his music on YouTube, but please subscribe to his channel (after a channel hits 1,000 subscriptions, opportunities open up).

I just want to add that I call Jontavious my friend and he is. We became friends because I heard him playing something on YouTube, I was blown away and I tracked him down on Facebook, that was a great start and something you could do. On a Facebook-related subject, up till recently, he’d been posting other artists’ music on Fridays on Facebook, which I then reposted here. He hasn’t posted for two weeks, so I’ve necessarily taken a break. Here’s the last song from Blue Metamorphosis, don’t miss the ones in-between.