JP Williams Blues Band

local bluesman is doing his part to further the genre he loves by looking inward at his own creativity and offering new music.

In November, Tunkhannock artist JP Williams released “Stolen Cadillac,” his second studio album since returning to making music in 2014 after a long hiatus that allowed him to focus on his personal life. The four-song EP exclusively showcases songs written by Williams, his first effort of the kind since rekindling his recording with 2016’s “Mixed Bag.”

“Mixed Bag,” Williams’ first toe back into the proverbial blues waters, was a 12-song album that featured 11 arrangements of blues staples — the volume included interpretations of songs by greats like Bo Diddley, William “Casey Bill” Weldon and Willie Dixon — and one Williams original titled “Sleepin’ With The Devil.”

“Stolen Cadillac,” the guitarist and songwriter explained in a recent phone interview, was Williams’ reaffirmation of his own melody-authoring abilities.

“I really believe that the blues music that I do relies on artists that came before us, but, more so than all the other genres, sometimes it needs new work,” Williams said. “As I look at the progression from Robert Johnson to Muddy Waters to the Allman Brothers to Stevie Ray Vaughan to Joe Bonamassa, there’s always something new (to appreciate). I decided as I was doing this that that’s the direction I needed to go in.”

The EP shows Williams’ versatility with the swinging juke-joint swagger of “Now or Never,” the eerie torch jazz of “The Blues Got a Hold On Me” and the up-tempo acoustic delivery of “Woman of Mine.”

The title track, Williams explained, developed when Scranton singer-songwriter and playwright Tom Flannery offered his verses to Williams’ composition process.

“He sent me lyrics and said, ‘Put it to blues,’ and I did that,” Williams said. “I’m fitting my music to a Tom Waits type of thing. The lyrics are a bit darker. I tried to add music that would bring it out but also to have it be different.”

A chance encounter with a classic vehicle and its gregarious owner provided an iconic image for both album art and an accompanying video for the title cut.

“I walked out of a store in Tunkhannock and there was a 1961 pink Cadillac sitting there,” Williams said. “It belongs to a Mehoopany resident named Keith Verbjar, who graciously let us take photographs with it.”

The video has amassed over 500 views to date, and the single has been picked up for airplay by several radio stations and nationally syndicated radio show “Soul of the Blues with Cassie J. Fox.”

“We’re getting some good reviews, and we’re excited,” Williams said.

The album, recorded at Republic Audio Studio in Clarks Summit with producer Clyde Rosencrance, features more layered production than “Mixed Bag” and, in addition to Williams’ usual band of bassist Bob Strunk, drummer Jack Roberts and harmonicist Eddie “The Harp” Czarkowski, solicits the talents of percussionist Dominick Piccione, keyboard player Eric Brody, multi-instrumentalist Giles Davis and vocalist Ekat Pereyra. There’s even a guest appearance on cajon drum by Williams’ daughter Leslie Williams.

“I invited musicians to not only play the songs but to contribute their own unique talents to the recordings,” Williams said. “That gave the producer and I a lot of fine material to (use toward) the final product. By nature of the new material I have, I had to pick four uniquely distinct songs but have it be tied together with what I do live and what I present to the public.”

“The production is something I’m really proud of,” Williams continued. “I smile when I hear it.”

Williams also released a live album, “Smokin Hot,” earlier in 2017, and the record features his work with a cigar box guitar.

The veteran blues player said he’s looking forward to recording more new material in 2018 and returning to the Pennsylvania Cigar Box Guitar Festival in York for the second year in a row.

Upcoming local performances include appearances at Crotti’s on Ash and Ale Mary’s in Scranton and the Windsor Inn in Jermyn.

Reach Matt Mattei at 570-991-6651 or on Twitter @TimesLeaderMatt.

‘Stolen Cadillac’ and other releases by JP Williams are available for download on iTunes, Amazon, Spotify, and CDBaby and in both physical and digital formats at BluesBrokerRecords.com as well as at all local JP Williams Band performances.

For more information on JP Williams’ music and future performances, visit www.JP-Williams.com and www.Facebook.com/JPW.PA. - The Weekender - Times Leader

.P Williams is bringing back the Chicago and New Orleans Blues, with his new album ‘Stolen Cadillac’. He was able to turn each song into an unique composition, by finding a new way of expressing the Blues and adding new versatile elements to it. The music he produces, is based on artist like Muddy Waters or Howlin’ Woolf. There are aimed new ideas to be discovered in his songs. This is also the key to make the progression of music move forward.

“I really believe that the blues music that I do relies on artists that came before us”

Williams also said in an interview: “As I look at the progression from Robert Johnson to Muddy Waters to the Allman Brothers to Stevie Ray Vaughan , there’s always something new to appreciate.” History proofs, that the development of music could only happen, because musicians would eventually go their own way, by contributing some new ideas on how the Blues and later the Rock should be played. Same thing is to be discovered when looking at J.P Williams Blues. In order to make a change and keeping the Blues alive, we will have to add new ideas and sounds to it.

J.P Williams includes the guitar with a lot of tension and feeling in ‘TThe Blues Got A Hold On Me’ this intense ambition is going to be the core to his 4 song EP, with mostly dark lyrics. The way he expresses himself and the Blues through the guitar, reflects his experience and deep understanding for it. The feeling and sometimes almost steely elements, he puts into his guitar play and the versatility of instruments, are what complete ‘TThe Blues got a hold on me’, as well as the whole album. He invited other musicians to help the process move along with their unique talents.

‘Woman of mine’ can be described as an old school blues, where the guitar shuffle sets the tone for an earthy song with brilliant sounding licks. ‘Now or Never’ is an upbeat and swinging composition, which gets intensified by the harp. The sparkling piano brightens up the dark core and helps showing the Blues in all variations. The gathering of vocals and all kinds of instruments, could not be done better in ‘Stolen Cadillac’.

It has been a pleasure listening to such high quality and undoubtedly well produced Blues. The album is packed with fiery riffs and engaging drum and Cajon sections. His music is distinctive and represents pure joy about the Blues.

S.A - Back to The roots of music

C.J. MARSHALL / PUBLISHED: FEBRUARY 28, 2018
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JP Williams plays the blues on the guitar.

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JP Williams belts out a song with other members of the JP Williams Blues Band.


Sometimes, people get a second chance to achieve their dreams.

Take the case of JP Williams.

Many years ago, he was in New York City, trying to make a career as a musician. When that didn’t pan out, he moved to Tunkhannock, eventually setting up a music and computer store. It seemed as if his desire to perform and record music was a dead dream.

But things turned out differently.

Williams has released a few albums of his work, and his song ‘Stolen Cadillac’ has been receiving a lot of play time over the airwaves and the internet.

Williams plays guitar with his band, the JP Williams Blues Band, in many locations throughout Northeast Pennsylvania. The band performed during last year’s Founders’ Day celebration in Tunkhannock and has also appeared at Gin’s Tavern in Factoryville.

Mark Vanko, the owner of Gin’s Tavern, said that the JP Williams Blues Band has performed at his establishment many times over the years.

“They’ve performed here on New Year’s Day. The customers always find them very entertaining,” Vanko said.

“There’s Edward Czarkowski - we call him ‘Eddie the Harp.’ He’s my harmonica player,” Williams explained about the band members. “Bob Strunk, who’s from Tunkhannock, plays the bass. Jack Roberts plays the drums. “

“I won the ‘Best Blues Act of 2016,’ Steamtown Music Awards,” Williams said. “I was nominated ‘Best Guitarist 2017,’ Steamtown Music Awards.”

Like many other people, the road to success was a long one for Williams. He started playing the guitar in junior high school. While attending Wilkes College in the early 70s, Williams got his first taste of performing - playing in coffee houses and clubs in the Wilkes Barre area as a folk musician.

While he was attending Wilkes, Williams met his future wife, Dana.

Williams decided to try his luck as a musician in New York City but quickly found out that the music business could be a hard one indeed.

“Many are called, but few are chosen,” he said. “Musicians will play for nothing, just to be heard. That’s what we did.”

To earn money, Williams drove a cab and played at the entrances of subway stations in Times Square, where passersby would toss performers their change.

For Williams, it was the quality of music that provided his best experience in New York. But it got to the point where he and his wife realized they were not going make it in the city.

Williams decided to take a job in Tunkhannock but quickly returned to his roots by setting up a music store in the downtown area in 1977.

“In 1985, that morphed into MWS Computers - Music Work Shop Computers,” Williams explained.

The store was successful, keeping Williams busy for a number of years, along with other responsibilities. As a result, Williams did not perform publicly on the guitar for an extended period of time.

Although he sold the store in 2005, it seemed as if Williams would never again entertain crowds by playing the blues.

Then lightning struck.

Four years ago, Williams came across the name ‘Antoine Magliano’ while surfing the internet.

“I hadn’t heard from him in 30 years,” Williams explained. “He’s an incredible musician.”

The two had worked together in New York City, and Williams contacted Magliano to say hello.

“He asked me what kind of music am I playing now. And I told him I’m not.

“And he asked me why not. I didn’t have an answer,” Williams explained.

The conversation spurred Williams to again pick up his guitar and make an active stab at performing. But it wasn’t easy.

“People think of playing a guitar is like riding a bike. You never forget it. And while that is true to a certain extent, you can’t expect a person who hasn’t ridden a bike in a long time to jump on one and perform like a racer,” he said.

It took about a year of constant practice.

Things got to the point where Williams decided to record a CD titled ‘Mixed Bag.’ Most of the songs are ‘covers’ - works by other artists. But ‘Sleepin’ With the Devil’ is by Williams himself.

Although he created ‘Mixed Bag’ primarily to provide samples of the band’s performance skills, the CD turned out so well Williams decided to record another. ‘Smokin’ Hot’ was recorded live at the Bongo Road House in Lake Ariel.

Then Williams was approached by his friend Tom Flannery of Scranton, who had written lyrics for a song titled ‘Stolen Cadillac.’

“He wanted me to write the music,” Williams said. “I told him I could, but I would probably have to rearrange the lyrics. He said that would be OK.”

This resulted in the release of the third album by the JP Williams Blues Band, ‘Stolen Cadillac.’ In addition to the title song by Williams and Flannery, it also contains three new songs written by Williams.

The title song and the album have been so well received, Williams considers ‘Stolen Cadillac,’ the band’s breakout album.

A video of ‘Stolen Cadillac’ is available on youtube. A video of another song performed by the band, ‘Midnight Blues,’ has received 40,000 plays.

“That’s quite an achievement,” Williams said.

Williams and his band are now working on a fourth album - Cigar Box Boogie - which is scheduled to be completed by July 1.

Williams maintains a website at www.JP-Williams.com, where one can obtain the band’s scheduled performances, as well as other information. One can also obtain information on Williams’ Facebook page at www.Facebook.com/JPWilliamsBluesBand.com. - Wyoming Couty Press Examiner

A local bluesman is doing his part to further the genre he loves by looking inward at his own creativity and offering new music.

In November, Tunkhannock artist JP Williams released “Stolen Cadillac,” his second studio album since returning to making music in 2014 after a long hiatus that allowed him to focus on his personal life. The four-song EP exclusively showcases songs written by Williams, his first effort of the kind since rekindling his recording with 2016’s “Mixed Bag.”

“Mixed Bag,” Williams’ first toe back into the proverbial blues waters, was a 12-song album that featured 11 arrangements of blues staples — the volume included interpretations of songs by greats like Bo Diddley, William “Casey Bill” Weldon and Willie Dixon — and one Williams original titled “Sleepin’ With The Devil.”

“Stolen Cadillac,” the guitarist and songwriter explained in a recent phone interview, was Williams’ reaffirmation of his own melody-authoring abilities.

“I really believe that the blues music that I do relies on artists that came before us, but, more so than all the other genres, sometimes it needs new work,” Williams said. “As I look at the progression from Robert Johnson to Muddy Waters to the Allman Brothers to Stevie Ray Vaughan to Joe Bonamassa, there’s always something new (to appreciate). I decided as I was doing this that that’s the direction I needed to go in.”

The EP shows Williams’ versatility with the swinging juke-joint swagger of “Now or Never,” the eerie torch jazz of “The Blues Got a Hold On Me” and the up-tempo acoustic delivery of “Woman of Mine.”

The title track, Williams explained, developed when Scranton singer-songwriter and playwright Tom Flannery offered his verses to Williams’ composition process.

“He sent me lyrics and said, ‘Put it to blues,’ and I did that,” Williams said. “I’m fitting my music to a Tom Waits type of thing. The lyrics are a bit darker. I tried to add music that would bring it out but also to have it be different.”

A chance encounter with a classic vehicle and its gregarious owner provided an iconic image for both album art and an accompanying video for the title cut.

“I walked out of a store in Tunkhannock and there was a 1961 pink Cadillac sitting there,” Williams said. “It belongs to a Mehoopany resident named Keith Verbjar, who graciously let us take photographs with it.”

The video has amassed over 500 views to date, and the single has been picked up for airplay by several radio stations and nationally syndicated radio show “Soul of the Blues with Cassie J. Fox.”

“We’re getting some good reviews, and we’re excited,” Williams said.

The album, recorded at Republic Audio Studio in Clarks Summit with producer Clyde Rosencrance, features more layered production than “Mixed Bag” and, in addition to Williams’ usual band of bassist Bob Strunk, drummer Jack Roberts and harmonicist Eddie “The Harp” Czarkowski, solicits the talents of percussionist Dominick Piccione, keyboard player Eric Brody, multi-instrumentalist Giles Davis and vocalist Ekat Pereyra. There’s even a guest appearance on Cajon drum by Williams’ daughter Leslie Williams.

“I invited musicians to not only play the songs but to contribute their own unique talents to the recordings,” Williams said. “That gave the producer and I a lot of fine material to (use toward) the final product. By nature of the new material I have, I had to pick four uniquely distinct songs but have it be tied together with what I do live and what I present to the public.”

“The production is something I’m really proud of,” Williams continued. “I smile when I hear it.”

Williams also released a live album, “Smokin Hot,” earlier in 2017, and the record features his work with a cigar box guitar.

The veteran blues player said he’s looking forward to recording more new material in 2018 and returning to the Pennsylvania Cigar Box Guitar Festival in York for the second year in a row.

Upcoming local performances include appearances at Crotti’s on Ash and Ale Mary’s in Scranton and the Windsor Inn in Jermyn.

Reach Matt Mattei at 570-991-6651 or on Twitter @TimesLeaderMatt.

‘Stolen Cadillac’ and other releases by JP Williams are available for download on iTunes, Amazon, Spotify, and CDBaby and in both physical and digital formats at BluesBrokerRecords.com as well as at all local JP Williams Band performances.

For more information on JP Williams’ music and future performances, visit www.JP-Williams.com and www.Facebook.com/JPW.PA. - The Weekender - Times Leader

The first few seconds of steely, punctuated chording that opens J.P. Williams’ “Mixed Bag” is evocative of what the next 11 tracks hold – sparse, yet rhythmically rumbling acoustic blues.

The track, a Delta-dished interpretation of Bo Diddley’s “Who Do You Love,” is everything that Williams is known for, musically – string-snapping zips via resonator guitar, gruff, yet familiar husk in his voice, and earthen sophistication in his interpretation of the genre. Williams, now in his fifth decade as a practitioner of Mississippi-strewn goodness, displays his wealth of dexterity here, with musical voicings that turn an eye toward originality in an often stagnated form of expression. It speaks volumes when a guy plays the standards without sounding, well, standard.

The latest release on NEPA’s newest boutique label, Blues Broker Records, “Mixed Bag” is just that – a top-notch selection of the Tunkhannock-based Williams’ mix of blues and folk, as he’s stated the album is a representation of what you’d see from him live. In addition to a heavy Chicago blues influence, he’s also been deeply touched by folk music – he spent several years on the coffeehouse circuit in New York City honing his skills in the interpersonal give and take that his music exudes so well.

Recorded at Dalton’s Republic Audio Studios, this folk/blues amalgam can be heard vividly in tracks like the Lowell George/Little Feat cut, “Willin’.” The song is a standout, in the fact that it takes the semi-rollick, countrified/Americana tone of the original and warms it up to a virtual fireside chat – Williams’ take sounds like the wrenched-heart conciliatory offering of a sage elder, with every note a stepping stone in the tale of being “kicked by the wind.”

“Be Kind To Me” is equally folk-laden, with a tongue-in-cheek hint of self-deprecation (Williams adds extra quirk with kazoo accompaniment, while sideman “Eddie The Harp” crows on with flyaway harmonica) – it’s the kind of witty fare in which singer/songwriter Guy Clark excelled.

There are also staunchly blues-infused offerings, like a slow-to-ignite cover of Muddy Waters’ “Long Distance Call,” complete with precision-stung slide guitar – Williams’ vocals coaxing and wry in his insinuation to his love, “one of these days, I’m gonna show you just how nice a man can be.”

When musicians talk of how you “can’t teach feel,” this is what they mean. “Firehouse Mama” is another intense, open-tuned blues burner – Williams’ funky vocal snark sounds something like a Dr. John-annotated reading of Skip James, with “she keeps me on fire when there’s no one else around.”

Performances blooming with confidence, swagger, and resourceful creative license, J.P. Williams is a welcome drop of Delta rain to wash away a bad case of tired 12-bar blues.

Mark Uricheck is a Weekender correspondent who writes weekly CD reviews. Reach Weekender at wbwnews@civitasmedia.com - The Weekender - Times Leader