International Blues Challenge finalists Lynnette Barber and Will Ellis will join us for a special performance at the Triangle Blues Society’s 2025 Member Appreciation Party, held from 4-7 p.m. May 4 at the Blue Note Grill in Durham. Stop by to renew your membership and mingle with fellow blues music enthusiasts. Prior to the event, Lynnette and Will shared the story of their amazing experiences in Memphis:
By Barry Shuster
Triangle Blues Society
Last January, Lynnette Barber and Will Ellis arrived in Memphis a couple of days before their scheduled performance at the 2025 International Blues Challenge. Soon to step onto the stage at the historic Orpheum Theater, they wanted to take in the sights and, of course, sounds of the city called “Home of the Blues.” Their first destination was the museum honoring R&B legend Tina Turner in Brownsville, Tennessee, which is about an hour’s drive north of Memphis.
For Barber and Ellis, who earned top honors in the 2024 Triangle Blues Challenge solo/duo division, the excursion was not simply to sightsee. As Jimi Hendrix observed, “blues is easy to play, but hard to feel.” Barber and Ellis both nod to that sentiment. They arrived in Memphis to win. And as Ellis explains, their strategy included paying homage to the music and its luminaries. An athlete might describe it as psyching up for the game.
If it takes feeling to play the blues, Ellis says reaching the IBC finals also requires a game plan. He explains that once competing performers step on stage, they have 30 minutes to complete their quarterfinal set. If they advance to the semifinals, the 30-minute time window also applies. And if they are one of the six acts to reach the finals, they have only 20 minutes from start to finish.
In other words, there is no time to dawdle or fumble. And that is why Barber and Ellis timed every phase of their performance, including their engaging warm-up banter and Lynnette’s spoken-word intros to connect with the audience before launching into the song.
“I think lack of planning hurt some of the performers,” says Ellis, noting one competitor in particular who fussed with equipment before launching into the set. “You lose points if you go over the time limits.”
While the duo’s methodical approach likely dialed down the stress of competing, it did not sidestep every possible hiccup. Grace under pressure is also a plus. Ellis recounts taking his seat at the electronic keyboard on stage and scanning the controls to determine quickly how to adjust the settings to an acoustic piano voicing.
However, we should not make the mistake of thinking that their winning strategy discounts their immense talent. It took them from being one of 59 solo/duo acts in the quarterfinals to one of six finalists.
Barber possesses an elegant and engaging stage presence and a powerful and soulful voice reminiscent of Etta James. Ellis has an equally dynamic and engaging persona and attacks the keys with driving rhythm and silky fills and runs. Even a casual listener is likely to form the same opinion as the fans and judges at the IBC. Among the feedback the duo said they received at the event is that their big sound belies that they are, well, a duo.
Now residing in Raleigh and Chapel Hill, respectively, Barber was raised in Columbia, North Carolina, and Ellis calls Wadesboro his hometown. And like so many blues, jazz and R&B stars, their earliest musical influence was church gospel. Ellis says he began performing on the keys of an old upright piano at church on Sundays. As for the stage, both Barber and Ellis were drawn to theater as youngsters.
Ellis’s father played a small role in the movie based on the Pulitzer-winning novel The Color Purple, which was filmed in Wadesboro in the 1980s and celebrates its 40th anniversary this year. Ellis recalls his own first role at age six in a local theatrical production and his one and only line: “My mama ain’t got no washing machine.” He also remembers the director coaching him on the proper delivery of that line, imparting lessons on excellence and timing that stay with him today. Ellis went on to perform as a stand-up comedian, in addition to playing and singing.
Barber was drawn to dramatic performance early on and into adulthood. Her acting resume includes her one-woman shows celebrating and illuminating the lives of abolitionist and social activist Harriett Tubman and gospel music icon Mahalia Jackson.
For Barber, her stage also included the real-life classroom. Her passion for educating and helping others seems to rival her love of performance. After high school, she continued her own schooling as an accounting major at North Carolina State University, and then transferred to St. Augustine’s University to earn a degree in broadcast communications. Eventually, she went on to earn an education degree at North Carolina Central University and enjoyed a career teaching high school students with special needs.
When watching Barber’s and Ellis’s International Blues Challenge performances, it should come as no surprise that their stage presence and ability to engage an audience have been cultivated over many years. However, given Barber’s outward confidence as a vocalist in the spotlight, it’s perhaps surprising that she did not come to terms with her singing talent until age 30.
At the time, as a member of her Raleigh church, Barber was a supporter but not a singer in the choir. Even when she joined the chorus, she preferred to stay in the background. The root of her reluctance to stand out was her concern over her vocal range, which she describes as primarily contralto. She recalls the female choral members hitting high notes. Barber questioned if her lower range was lead singer material. All that changed when the choir director asked her to step out front for a song.
Barber pushed back, but the director insisted. “I’m saying to him, I’m not going to do it,” says Barber. “I’m not going to do it. And he just puts the mic in front of me and said ‘go.’ Never in my life have I sung out loud in front of folks.”
She adds, “because I was so scared of a microphone, probably the next 10, 15 years, if I had to sing, I had to sing with the microphone stand. And still today I prefer the stand.”
Barber says her confidence and development as a lead vocalist were also shaped by her dramatic and singing celebration of Mahalia Jackson, whose range was also primarily contralto. It was further proof that a lady need not hit the notes like a soprano to wow her audience.
Figurative and literal doors opened quickly for Barber. Her duo performance in 2025 was not her first trip to compete at the Orpheum Theater. Barber was an early member of the Triangle Blues Society. “I started going to jams and met Ricardo Nunez,” she recalls. As leader of a celebrated R&B band Big Rick and the Bombers, Nunez brought her on board. Her performances with the group included the 20th annual Durham Blues Festival in 2007 and competing with them at the IBC. At the time, Barber recalls meeting and speaking with blues legend Koko Taylor, one of her early blues-genre inspirations.
Barber and Ellis met in 2022 when introduced by a church choir director. They began performing together in 2023 at various events, the first of which was a gig at the North Carolina Museum of History.
Neither Barber nor Ellis is shy about expressing their confidence boost from making it to the 2025 IBC finals. Only the top two finalists are apprised of their ranking. Barber and Ellis could have been third or sixth. They do not know. And it doesn’t matter. Every IBC finalist joins the ranks of a rarefied community of blues people.
Their current set list draws from original compositions written by Ellis as well as covers of standards such as B.B. King’s “The Thrill Is Gone.” They are fans of an eclectic lineup of blues artists that includes Shemekia Copeland, Sugaray Rayford, and Buddy Guy, who is now 88 years old and still inspires nearly every blues guitarist.
Barber says the music and words she performs must evoke her own feelings. Perhaps she and Ellis’s only challenge ahead as stellar blues performers is living the blues. Hopefully, that is not a strict requirement for their continued success. They are being presented with accolades and opportunities from near and afar in the wake of their success at this year’s IBC.
On May 17, 2025, the Arts Conference Events Center in Knightdale, North Carolina, will host an event called Harpo’s Juke Joint to celebrate the duo. They are looking to perform with a full rhythm section backing them. Barber says they received interest from “a gentleman out of New York who was helping to put together an event to bring blues to Asia.”
Moreover, they enjoy rich lives on and off the stage. Barber continues to help young adults overcome educational and social challenges through counseling and tutoring, even though she is now retired from the public school system. She is happy to discuss her vegan collards recipe. Ellis can still be found at the piano in church on Sundays, and he seems to enjoy talking about his garden as much as his music.