Johnny Willis spent most of his adult life composing music, and over the course of six decades penned hundreds of original pieces. John was never sure of the exact number but placed it in excess of three hundred works. He was a founder member of the Yorkshire Concertina Club, which he helped to establish in November 1992. The music he wrote was always uniquely distinctive. Although there are elements of classical, folk,, jazz, ragtime and many others in his compositions, the only words which adequately describe his music as a whole are "good, original and fun to play". As such many of the works lend themselves melodically to a wide range of musical instruments. John himself played a variety of other instruments, including various wind instruments and the banjo. He not only made good music, but also made good musical instruments. That included many finely crafted banjos along with other stringed instruments such as lute and Celtic harp. Refurbishing Lachenal and Wheatstone concertinas was another of his musical endeavors. When not engaged in music John was interested in a wide range of other activities, including steam engines, crafting exact scale replicas of traction engines, building boats and generally 'messing about in sheds'. Many of the things which he made he either gave away or sold for a fraction of their true value. His own explanation for this was that he was always "...interested in making things, but not interested in making money".