The Willies are Nashville based roots artists conjuring the spirit of that time before bordello jazz & dirty fingernail blues were the background music for baristas and doggy bakeries. But as veterans of the American underground, the Willies aren’t interested in reenacting the rough and tumble legacy of 20’s swing & blues... they embody that energy. And these genres are only starting points... vintage bottles to contain several lifetimes of experience in the jazz, blues, rockabilly and punk underworld.
The Willies are a sound collage... a musical hybrid where multiple muses reanimate street jazz as the throbbing expression of a vibrant & disreputable counter culture. With the Willies punk meets ragtime. Or cat house jazz is driven by a drugged ska beat. Oi gang vocals layer the blues or a stride piano accompanies an elaborate revenge fantasy. Banjos chunk. A trumpet blares. The vocals pour out sultry, or comic, or crooning or just plain pissed off while the rhythm section thumps with the pounding repetition of a bloated corpse slapping against the hull of a Mississippi riverboat.
These influences reveal a mixed bag of legitimate bohemian back stories. Singer Jen Jones commandeered a road unworthy van and spent years shuffling musicians and authentic swing from NYC to California. Dave Willie and Devin Pena broke ground and broke bones in the embryonic hardcore punk scene. Carco Clave spent decades eating his Thanksgiving dinners out of paper bags while backing Asleep at the Wheel, Little Jimmy Dickens and Chuck Meade. Wunderkind Jeremiah Cline cut his teeth in the subterranean world of urban hillbilly music. And Ben Clark comes to the party as a trained jazzbo with a refined & brutal trumpet attack.
The Willies are counter cultural zealots. You can see it in their live shows. Their raucous stage banter. Their energetic reworking of traditional standards. But most of all this passion comes through in their original compositions. Their raison d’etre. This is the place where Willies get to catalog their influences... to construct new wholes from past memories... eagerly looking forward but always open to the influence of the ghosts and demons from a wildly entertaining past.
The Willies rock this vintage Jump song, live at Drifter’s BBQ. Jen Jones, Dave Willie, Corey Fritz, Jerimiah Cline, and Devin Pena.
The Willies merge gospel and Jazz Age Thump at this festival for The Summer Solstice, in Red Boiling Springs TN. Featuring Dave Willie, Jen Jones, Devin Pena…
The Willies playing that Jazz Age Thump with this original blues inspired by Louis Armstrong and Bessie Smith. Recorded at Fry Pharmacy, live. NASHVILLE SWINGS!
Video for ‘Too Lazy To Love’. Fantastic vintage clips from the 20s and 30s. Flappers, swing dancers, Surrealism and great 20’s pinup girls.
The Willies hitting it Jager Bomb style at the Preservation Pub in Knoxville. April 27, 2013.
The Willies play thrie first Knoxville show at the fantastic Preservation Pub.
The Willies live inside a montage or 1920s surrealist films and 1920s. Jen Jones & Dave Willie do their version of jazz/caberet performers from the Paris of …
The Willies performing “After The Fight” at Music City Roots live from the Loveless Cafe on 7.11.2012
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