Music to His Ears
J. Willoughby Loves Hearing His Daughter Sing
By Keysha Drexel
Journal editor
In a feat of musicianship and a testament to his status as the ultimate fan, J. Willoughby and the Black Jacket Symphony will recreate, note by note, every song on the Rolling Stones’ 1978 “Some Girls” album on June 14-15 at Workplay in Birmingham.
And while he’ll be singing about “some girls” during the performance with the group of Birmingham music all-stars he co-founded, the Mountain Brook resident said these days, his mind is more focused on just one girl–his daughter, Sammie Jean.
“I know every parent thinks this, but I really do have the best kid,” he said. “I love being a dad, and Sammie Jean is so cool.”
And some would argue, like father, like daughter.
Like her father did at her age, 9-year-old Sammie Jean is writing songs, has her own favorite singers and is working to form a band.
And when Sammie Jean takes the stage with her father and Black Jacket Symphony for special performances, she becomes the third generation of Willoughbys to spend time behind a microphone.
J. Willoughby is the son of Birmingham radio legend John Ed Willoughby, who along with Tommy Charles had one of the longest running morning radio shows in Birmingham.
When he sees Sammie Jean belt out a classic rock tune, Willoughby said it is one of those special moments that brings together the loves of his life–his daughter and music.
And while he is proud of his own body of work, Willoughby said nothing makes his heart swell like hearing his Sammie Jean rattle off the discography of the bands he grew up listening to and idolizing.
“Nothing is better than hearing Sammie Jean sing Beatles songs. She knows every word. I’ve been playing that music to her since she was in her mom’s belly,” Willoughby said.
The Beatles started his daughter’s love affair with music, Willoughby said, and his own.
“I saw them playing on TV when I was just a little kid and that was it. I was hooked, obsessed and I still am,” he said.
And while he is also a diehard Stones fan, Willoughby said that the Beatles are responsible for sparking his and his daughter’s passion for rock and roll and that the iconic group’s influence continues to reverberate.
“I always say that you couldn’t have the Stones without the Beatles,” he said. “The Beatles were the Big Bang of music. They almost singlehandedly transformed something that everyone thought was going to be just a fad into an art.”
Willoughby was an only child and said he remembers being Sammie Jean’s age and listening to rock and roll records for hours at a time.
Now, his daughter is expanding his music listening repertoire and keeping her dad hip to all the cool new acts, he said.
“Oh, she loves the classic stuff, too, but she definitely has her own, distinct tastes. She loves Pink and Adele and some of the newer stuff,” he said.
Willoughby said watching Sammie Jean’s love and knowledge of music grow gives him an idea of what his own father must have felt like as young J. sang “Hey Jude” for hours on end at their Mountain Brook home.
“My dad, both my parents, were always supportive of me and my music. I was 9 years old and begging for a guitar, so they bought me a guitar and signed me up for classical guitar lessons,” he said.
But while he was happy to have his own guitar, the young Willoughby was less than thrilled with the lessons.
“When I learned how to play a bar chord, I was off on my own, and my dad let me quit the lessons. Not many parents would have done that, but he did,” he said.
Willoughby said he thinks his dream of being a professional musician was influenced by his father’s own experience in show business and his willingness to follow his passion.
During his more than 30-year career in Birmingham radio, John Ed was half of a popular morning radio show, “T.C. and John Ed,” which aired for many years on AM stations. John Ed and Tommy Charles were on the air for almost 22 years together.
“My father didn’t really start on the radio until I was about 13 years old,” Willoughby said. “Up until that point, he worked for his dad at a furniture store in Fairfield.”
Willoughby said his father kind of fell into the radio business when in 1975, he called in to D.J. Tommy Charles and ended up on the show as a regular co-host.
“My father has always been a naturally funny, entertaining speaker. That’s his gift,” he said. “He just kind of fell into the radio business and never looked back. He loved it.”
His father’s willingness to embrace his natural gifts and do what he loved is something Willoughby said has influenced his own career path.
“After he started on radio, my father never did anything that he didn’t love to do,” he said. “I grew up knowing that following your passion is a worthy pursuit and that you don’t have to have a regular 9-5 job.”
And Willoughby said he made the decision at a young age that the 9-5 routine wasn’t for him.
“I just knew being a musician was what I wanted to do, and I knew that at 9,” he said. “The only other option I even considered was being a football player, but as I grew up and it became apparent that I would never weigh more than 130 pounds, that idea was out the window.”
While Willoughby’s parents were supportive of his rock and roll aspirations, they did want him to go to college. So he earned a bachelor’s degree at the University of Alabama and started pursuing a master’s degree in music there.
“My parents said that as long as I finished college, I could do anything I wanted to after that, and I thought that was a pretty good deal,” he said.
While he was in college, Willoughby was a key member in the Newboys, a 1980s college buzz band that was considered one of the premiere regional bands at that time.
“I was able to play some clubs in the Southeastern circuit, and we had a really big college following. It was a fun time where I really learned a lot,” he said.
And the Newboys might just have a new generation of fans if Sammie Jean’s choice for the name of the band she’s forming with her friends is any indication.
“She told me she wants to name her band the Newgirls,” Willoughby said, laughing. “It kind of blew me away because I didn’t even know she knew anything about the Newboys.”
After the Newboys, Willoughby moved to Nashville to take a job with a music publishing company.
Working there, Willoughby said, changed his approach to songwriting.
“When I was young, it was almost like the songs would just come to you and you just had to get the music out. Back then, it was really personal, and you kind of worked with how the song sounded when it came out of your head. Only later did I really realize that songwriting was a craft.”
Willoughby said he also had to adjust to writing songs with a partner for the first time while working in Nashville.
“I was singularly focused and it was hard, but I kept plowing through it,” he said. “I got something different out of songwriting from that experience, and it was neat to learn how to write songs with someone else.”
During that process of learning to co-write songs, Willoughby said his thoughts naturally would turn to the songwriting dynamo of John Lennon and Paul McCartney.
“It gave me a new appreciation for the craftsmanship that they put into their songs,” he said. “But I knew we weren’t trying to be the next Lennon and McCartney. That’s the kind of thing you just can’t manufacture.”
And while his work in Nashville taught him a new method of writing songs, Willoughby said he has recently returned to the more personal songwriting approach he had when he was starting out in the business.
One of the songs that has come out of that write-when-the-inspiration-strikes-you style of songwriting is called “Me and Sammie Jean.” It’s been in the works since for about five years, Willoughby said.
“When we were about to go somewhere together in the car, we would make up little verses and sing together,” he said.
As Sammie Jean grew and her love and interest in music flourished, so did the song she and her father wrote together on their car trips.
“It became kind of like a Bob Dylan song with something like 30 verses,” he said. “We’ve since whittled that down quite a bit.”
Willoughby performs the song he and his daughter wrote when he takes the stage to play solo or with friends.
But these days, Willoughby said, his work with Black Jacket Symphony is his primary musical focus.
The ensemble creates classic rock albums in concert, note for note in a way that Willoughby describes as “almost forensic.”
“It’s not a tribute band. It’s not a cover band. It’s a group of people who love this music and who spend a lot of time researching and rehearsing and preparing so that we can get it just right,” he said. “These guys are pros and really know their stuff.”
The group always likes to include surprises in the second part of their shows when they do a greatest hits set, Willoughby said.
During that set, Sammie Jean has performed onstage with her dad as part of the children’s choir in “Another Brick in the Wall” by Pink Floyd.
“It’s really cool to have my little girl up there with me, and it makes the performances that much more special,” Willoughby said.
Next up for Black Jacket Symphony will be an Aug. 23 gig at the Alys Stephens Center where the group will present the Beatles’ White Album–the entire double album–in two sets starting at 8 p.m.
The June 14-15 performances by Black Jacket Symphony are sold out but for information on the Aug. 23 performance, visit blackjacketsymphony.com.
