Joe Watts: Bringing Music, Service, and Soul to James Weldon Johnson Park

Joe Watts

On an unseasonably warm December afternoon, a boisterous and active group of young students rush the small stage at James Weldon Johnson Park. Voices unite as musician Joe Watts leans into the microphone:

Singing don’t worry about a thing

‘cause every little thing, gonna be alright!

Adult chaperones, lunch goers, and others at the historic downtown Jacksonville park join in, and as Watts sings each verse, the newly assembled park community stands ready for the refrain. When they deliver, those energetic students are joyfully loud, shouting and waving hands in the air. Everyone is smiling, including Watts.

“It makes the whole situation fulfilling, especially with kids. When you get kids involved, their faces light up, and you know you’re doing something positive,” Watts said. “It’s worth it. It’s worth more than the money.”

Watts, a Jacksonville native who plays at the park each Wednesday, smiled in recognition of this Bob Marley-inspired experience, one of many memorable days that keep this professional musician returning no matter the size or demographics of the crowd.

And that’s saying something, since Watts has toured the world with famous acts including the O’Jays and Mary J. Blige, and served as musical director for Mary Wilson, formerly of the Supremes. He also lived and worked as a musician for more than a decade in Stockholm, Sweden. Based back in his hometown now, Watts, a multi-instrumentalist with a trombone specialty, still performs solo piano shows and tours with a jazz trio. He is also still writing, producing, and singing for himself and other musicians, in addition to his weekly gigs at the park over the last four years.

What started as a one-time opportunity has turned into a weekly “service, a labor of love” that draws many park regulars, downtown employees, and even those who catch the bus or travel a distance to attend. The audience thrills Watts because its eclectic make-up represents all incomes, experiences, and professions. Performing at the park is a service to his city, an act which Watts ties to his mother, a classical pianist and retired school teacher, and his father, a minister and singer.

“They alone touched so many lives and I got an opportunity to see that,” Watts said. “I’d like to continue in that line of service, to be helpful wherever I can.”

That helpfulness includes performing at assisted living communities, where Watts pulls from a wide musical catalogue of contemporary, jazz, rhythm and blues, and spiritual songs to entertain elderly audiences. Many have limited mobility, dementia, even Alzheimer’s disease, but they are moved just as much as people at James Weldon Johnson Park.

“Even if they haven’t been speaking, all of a sudden they might remember a lyric and blurt it out,” Watts said. “I’m just so thankful to God that I can touch people with so many different types of genres.”

The practice of sharing his musical gifts and making any experience special for an audience happens weekly in another place that’s important to Watts: Ebenezer United Methodist Church, where he has served as music minister since late 2019. While he traces the drive as a musician to his mother, ministering is an obvious connection to his father.

It turns out there is another connection for Watts: one of his predecessors in this role was James Weldon Johnson himself. Watts calls the renaming of the park a “great, great, great” and sensitive decision that honors Johnson’s contributions to Jacksonville and all of society. Watts just wishes Johnson’s father, who was head waiter at the St. James Hotel, located where City Hall now stands, could witness it.

“When he looked out over this park, he didn’t see something he could be proud of. Something that would honor him or African Americans in any way,” Watts said. “I wish we could just go back in time and give him the opportunity to see this. How great of a thing would that be? Even for James himself.”

This wish for a father to see his son’s accomplishments is personal. Watts wishes his own father could see his flourishing musical career, wonderful family life wife, Aundria, a retired nurse, and daughter, Amber, a music producer and writer in Sweden. And, of course, a life dedicated to service through music.

In the spirit of that service, Watts is writing an album of songs inspired by this urban park in the heart of downtown Jacksonville. He has a growing list of song titles and lyrics underway that are inspired by the park’s rich history, its people, and events. Even the park’s location, at the historic Laura and Monroe streets intersection, will be featured.

While others might not find the park muses Watts has, his weekly gigs and lifelong connection to this space make it a natural outcome. As for those connections, they began in the city’s more difficult years.

“I had good memories of the park, but we were always reminded of some things like the Woolworth’s store right across the street where they had the sit-in at the lunch counter and Ax-Handle [Saturday],” Watts said. “I didn’t experience it, but I heard about it and a lot has come to light.”

As details of many related events came to light and the park’s renaming marked a more positive direction for the city, Watts was encouraged. Now, he hopes that the park will someday include more grassy areas for people to sit and relax, eat lunch, or listen to the music. In the meantime, Watts will always see James Weldon Johnson Park as inviting to the whole community.

“It’s a blessing to have a space where people can congregate, no matter where they’re from,” Watts said. “It doesn’t matter and that’s a great thing. It’s always been like that. It’s just special down here.”