Meet Joseph J4″ Wandass IV | Recording Artist

We had the good fortune of connecting with Joseph “J4” Wandass IV and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Joseph “J4”, can you walk us through the thought-process of starting your business?
When I first started creating the musical artist and brand J4, I really was just a kid. I didn’t realize all that went into running a business that supports myself and other recording artists in the process. Though J4 began as a teaching and performance based business in 2014, I slowly built J4 LLC into a multimedia company that provides a backing for not only me as an artist, but a one stop shop for other artists to use as a resource for songwriting, production, engineering, learning, and various other domains within the music field. Although my primary function in the industry is as an artist and songwriter, I supplement my income via teaching and music production, as I am passionate about all aspects of the music industry. Being a music entrepreneur certainly is the coolest job out there, at least to me.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
I began performing music at the age of 10 in Buffalo, NY. However, after gaining local acclaim and awards for my compositions I began performing in Nashville, TN by the age of 12. During this time I performed Tootsie’s World Famous Orchid Lounge, Rippy’s Bar and Grille, the Commodore Grille, Honkey Tonk Central, Margaritaville, and various other nationally recognized venues as a teenager. At 15, due to a possible major label record deal, my family and I moved down to middle Tennessee.

However, due to the working conditions on Broadway in Nashville, I quickly realized this was an unsustainable pathway forward. Though we had moved down and I was performing regularly, the record deal fell through, and I began to perform locally around Nashville. This garnered some fantastic opportunities, from opening for Josh Turner and Lee Greenwood in 2015 to leading worship with Michael W Smith, a personal mentor and major musical influence of mine.

In 2016, I attended Belmont University for music, where I participated in multiple flagship ensembles including the world renown Belmont Chorale under the direction of master conductor Dr. Jeffrey Ames and Southbound the premier country music ensemble at Belmont headed by Henry Smiley. It was here I studied voice with legendary vocal teachers Henry Smiley (Russell Dickerson, Kassi Ashton) and Sandra Dudley (Melinda Doolittle), guitar with virtuosic session player Nick Palmer (Vince Gill), and practice piano in my free time.

During my undergraduate career, I completed two internships, one in 2017 with “vocal coach of the stars” Brett Manning (Singing Success) and another in 2019 with independent publisher Nancy Deckant (NashvilleCool Music Publishing/Discover Sooner). I also had the opportunity to perform as a background vocalist for Cage the Elephant in 2017, sing solo at the Schermerhorn in 2019, and perform Belmont’s coveted Commercial Music Showcase in 2020.

After completing my bachelors in 2020, I went on a missionary music tour that summer called The Extreme Tour, where I performed as both a lead act, guitarist, pianist, and background vocalist for others. Following this, I decided to go back for my graduate degree in music at Belmont.

During my graduate career, I worked as a graduate assistant for the Southbound ensemble, a teachers assistant working under vocal master Sandra Dudley teaching private voice instruction, and completed a thesis entitled “Co-writing Nashville Style” available in the Belmont Library. In 2021, I produced the winning Miss Tennessee 2022 Tally Bevis, who utilized my direction and production in the national Miss America Pageant. During my final year of graduate school I also completed a song series entitled “365 Songs in 365 Days,” a 365 song cycle that garnered over a million streams on Tiktok over the course of 2022.

After graduating in December of 2022, I decided to take the plunge into full time music. This was a very difficult time of my life with many aspects of adjustment. But 2023 was a fruitful year in which I placed my first Christmas song “Yuletidin’ with You” in a movie entitled Christmas at the Amish Bakery. In addition I performed at the Bluebird cafe as a featured artist in the round with Scott Barrier.

As a full-time musician, I currently work as a private music contractor in the Nashville area in the domains of performance, songwriting, production, education, and artist development. Some of the companies I am affiliated with include Nashville Cool Music Publishing, MC1 Nashville, Discover Sooner, Molly Girl Music, Washington Street Publishing, and various others. The most important key to being a musician who can pay his or her bills in the modern age is being multifaceted and executing at a high level across different sometimes competing avenues within the music field.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
I recently realized how much I take living in Nashville for granted.

In November of 2023, my aunt Belinda came down to see me from Buffalo NY. She spent a week visiting Nashville for the first time.

In that short week we saw the Country Music Hall of Fame, Schermerhorn Symphony Center, Gaylord Opryland Hotel, Grand Ole Opry, Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge, Centennial Park, downtown Franklin (main street), the Ryman Auditorium, and many other places. Of course these are the main tourist attractions.

However if you want to visit the REAL Nashville come to The Local, Commodore Grille, Bobby’s Idle Hour, and Millenium Maxwell House. These venues, though less populated by the mobs that descend on downtown Nashville each day, are packed full of local artists and songwriters creating and performing all ORIGINAL music, which is surprisingly hard to come by in Nashville, a town increasingly moving toward cover bands at every street corner.

I wish Nashville could move back toward original music being at the center of the industry, but for now, the country cover still dominates the tourism market here.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I would like to dedicate this interview to my father Dr. Joseph Wandass, III. As a classical music prodigy who was being scouted by many of the top schools in the country, my father had multiple chances to become one of the foremost concert pianists of his time. However, life’s circumstances and a peerless level of intelligence led him to pursue two doctorates instead, one in chemistry and a second in medicine. Despite this, his dedication and love for classical piano music has been the main driver behind my music career. He is the reason I do music today, and without him in my life, I would not have the musical ability necessary to compete in today’s saturated music market. If anything,

I hope this small aside in this article can bring to light how much impact a father making music with his son can have on the trajectory of a man’s life. I certainly can’t do any justice to how much he has impacted me in just this brief response.

Website: https://www.j4sings.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/j4sings/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/j4sings/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/j4sings

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/josephwandass/

Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/j4-nashville-2?osq=Vocal+Lessons+j4

Youtube: https://www.yelp.com/biz/j4-nashville-2?osq=Vocal+Lessons+j4

Image Credits
Main photo credit goes to Jan Buckingham Other photo credits go to Julie Ellis, Nita Ann (Nita in Nashville Photography), Jan Buckingham, and Lisa Wandass