Join the Oxford American magazine and Landers FIAT of Benton, Arkansas at South on Main for this week’s Local Live concert, featuring soulful indie-pop pianist, John Willis. at 7:30 PM

Local Live is a free Wednesday night series featuring local and regional Arkansas musicians on a solo bill. Call ahead to guarantee your seat at a table for this popular weekly event!

John Willis, the self-dubbed “King of the Cocktail Party,” spent his early musical years as a classically trained pianist playing private parties and backing several successful performing artists around Little Rock, including Cody Belew and Bonnie Montgomery. With his new release, King of the Cocktail Party EP, Willis has stepped into his own light as a front man with an intoxicating blend of piano-based pop, jazz, and parlor music that has elicited comparisons to Harry Nilsson, Leon Russell, Rufus Wainwright, and Feist.

Raised on a steady diet of old-time gospel sung in his father’s church, Motown and early ’70s singer/songwriters beloved by his mother, and Chopin, Debussy, and Gershwin tapes given to him by an elderly mentor, Willis has grown up to create a sophisticated musical style that is both instantly familiar and at the same time fresh.

Willis is actively promoting his new release locally and planning a tour in the coming months with his band. Though he still delights cocktail party audiences as one of Little Rock’s favorite piano guys, he is enjoying the success of King of the Cocktail Party and sharing his stylish mix of piano grooves and heartfelt ballads with lush, vocal harmonies liberally dosed throughout. These well-crafted songs are as much a nod to the past as they are a well-placed note hovering on the musical horizon.