COVER STORY

Jessica Willis Fisher pushes forward

BY JIM PATTERSON

Jessica Willis Fisher is into carving leather. Lately, she’s been making bracelets as gifts to 670 Kickstarter donors who helped finance her fine new album, Brand New Day.

“You got to drag the crafts away from my hands,” said Fisher, who also writes poetry, is working on a memoir and recently took up crocheting. She became a public figure thanks to her family band The Willis Clan, who came to fame on television shows America’s Got Talent and The Willis Clan, a socalled reality show.

Fisher’s first solo album, Brand New Day, was released in April on her 30th birthday. Sometimes harrowing lyrically but musically joyous, it ought to be on critics’ list of best country music albums for 2022.

But to really understand the good news, there’s some very dark territory to cover. Brand New Day marks a beginning, as the title implies. But it also marks an ending. “I like the analogy of you don’t get to choose the hand you’re holding, but you do get to play the hell out of the hand that you are given,” Fisher said.

The world saw The Willis Clan as a wholesome, talented family of 14 musicians led by patriarch Toby Willis. The family band, with Jessica as bandleader, were regulars on the Grand Ole Opry and released three albums.

That all came crashing down in the fall of 2016, when Toby Willis was arrested and convicted of sexual abuse. He is now serving a 40-year sentence.

“My dad was abusive in every way that a person can be,” Fisher said. “And I was in that environment with him until I was 23.”

The band went on hiatus and when her siblings returned in 2018 with a new album, Fisher didn’t participate.

“A lot of my writing had been kind of therapeutic for me growing up, but it was also just fun,” she said. “And it was escape, and it just kind of dried up. I didn’t feel like I could access it.”

Fisher sought help to recover and fell in love and then married Sean Fisher in 2017. Eventually the songs started to flow again. She wrote eight of the 10 songs on Brand New Day and co-wrote another.

“I’m not trying to be country. I’m not trying to be Irish. I’m not trying to be pop. I’m just trying to share these songs that mean so much to me.”

Music executive Pete Fisher, her father-in-law, introduced Fisher to producer Ben Fowler (Maddie & Tae, Sara Evans, The Doobie Brothers) and the album Brand New Day is the result. Many of the songs were born from her troubled past, but there are a couple of love songs to temper the mood.

“It was just fun and easy to make,” Fowler said. “Sometimes the subject matter is really hard, but sonically they sound bright and the lyrics have real depth and meaning to them.”

From “My History”: “All my story now belongs to me / I will try to build a better life for me / No one else will know what I could see / I am a survivor and you will be my history.”

“Yes, I went through those things; that little girl was me,” Fisher said. “Putting that song on the record is me being open about that. It is me saying, ‘Hey, I’m going to share this, I’m willing to talk about this.’”

Fisher adapted well to recording with Nashville session pros rather than her family, Fowler said. Her excellent preparation for the sessions and chops as a fiddler went over very well with seasoned players including Dan Dugmore, Bryan Sutton, Fred Eltringham, Mark Hill and Gordon Mote.

“It was just a love fest,” Fowler said. “They didn’t know (what to expect) that morning when they walked in there the first day. They just see a nice-looking female, and don’t know if it’s going to be an exceptional day musically, or what.

“But when she started singing, and particularly when she started playing fiddle, it’s like, ‘Oh, this is double great.’ So she’s got the goods, there’s no doubt about it across the board.”

Many of Fisher’s influences are from Irish and bluegrass music, so it’s a little surprising that Brand New Day sounds so radio-ready. She cites Alison Krauss, Enya and Nickel Creek as favorites.

“I’m not afraid of mainstream success or anything like that,” Fisher said. “I’m not trying to be country. I’m not trying to be Irish. I’m not trying to be pop. I’m just trying to share these songs that mean so much to me.”

Fowler thinks the album covers so much territory that it’s difficult to pigeonhole it to a genre, although it’s listed as an Americana record. Fisher is scheduled to perform at the Americana Fest in September in Nashville.

“Hopefully smarter people than I can figure out how to sell it or get it heard,” she said. “But that’s my biggest hope, that it is heard.”

Fisher’s book Unspeakable: Surviving My Childhood and Finding My Voice is set for release by Thomas Nelson / HarperCollins Christian Publishing on Nov. 2. She is also working to set up a foundation to help abuse survivors.

“My job is to show up and do my part,” Fisher said. “I’m super grateful for music to be the first chapter of that. … There’s much more to come.”

Jim Patterson is a freelance writer in Nashville. See more of his work at https://muckrack.com/jim-patterson