Biography
The Willis Clan emerged as a Tennessee-based family band whose national profile surged following a 2014 stint on NBC’s America’s Got Talent, where audiences first encountered their sincere blend of country, pop, rock, and Irish sounds steeped in faith and rural living. Two seasons of the TLC series The Willis Family followed, along with the 2015 release Heaven, until a domestic scandal forced an extended career pause. In 2018 six of the siblings regrouped for the album Speak My Mind.
Blending country and pop in the vein of the Corrs, Lady Antebellum, and the Partridge Family, the fourteen-member ensemble—parents Brenda and Toby together with their twelve home-schooled children Jessica, Jeremiah, Jennifer, Jeanette, Jackson, Jedi, Jasmine, Juliette, Jamie, Joy Anna, Jaeger, and Jada—created immediate impact with a striking 2014 appearance on America’s Got Talent that carried them to the quarterfinals. The next year brought a TLC contract for The Willis Family and the issuance of Heaven, an album of original pop material that included eleven tracks written by eldest sibling Jessica.
The group’s television and stage activities ended suddenly in 2016 after patriarch Toby’s arrest on four counts of child rape involving four of his daughters; he subsequently entered a guilty plea and received a forty-year prison term. The six eldest siblings aside from Jessica revived the Willis Clan in 2018 with the release of Speak My Mind, a record that confronted the abuse and resulting family trauma while extending themes of hope and recovery.
Blending country and pop in the vein of the Corrs, Lady Antebellum, and the Partridge Family, the fourteen-member ensemble—parents Brenda and Toby together with their twelve home-schooled children Jessica, Jeremiah, Jennifer, Jeanette, Jackson, Jedi, Jasmine, Juliette, Jamie, Joy Anna, Jaeger, and Jada—created immediate impact with a striking 2014 appearance on America’s Got Talent that carried them to the quarterfinals. The next year brought a TLC contract for The Willis Family and the issuance of Heaven, an album of original pop material that included eleven tracks written by eldest sibling Jessica.
The group’s television and stage activities ended suddenly in 2016 after patriarch Toby’s arrest on four counts of child rape involving four of his daughters; he subsequently entered a guilty plea and received a forty-year prison term. The six eldest siblings aside from Jessica revived the Willis Clan in 2018 with the release of Speak My Mind, a record that confronted the abuse and resulting family trauma while extending themes of hope and recovery.
Albums
Singles
