In Memoriam · 1932 — 2013
John Herman Willingham
Memphis pitmaster · inventor · restaurateur
John Willingham (May 19, 1932 — May 15, 2013) was a Memphis inventor, pitmaster, and restaurateur whose approach to barbecue changed how the craft is understood and competed. A creative entrepreneur and inveterate tinkerer, he spent decades in pursuit of a more perfect way to cook — a pursuit that produced 17 patents across fields ranging from prefabricated construction to consumer products.
His most celebrated invention was the W’ham® Turbo Cooker, patented in 1986, which used indirect heat to keep smoke away from the meat while sealing in moisture and flavor.
“John Willingham was a true legend of barbecue — winning awards everywhere he cooked, and winning friends at every stop with his own brand of wisdom, humor and kindness.”— Memphis in May Festival Organizers
The contest organizers termed him “the most acclaimed barbecue chef in the world.”
Where the Record Began
In 1983, Willingham’s® River City Rooters placed first in ribs at the Memphis in May World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest and were crowned Overall World Grand Champion. The following year the team repeated at Memphis in May — then won the Grand Championship at The American Royal in Kansas City, making them the only team in history to win both major championships in the same calendar year, a record that stands to this day.
Those wins were the first in a long string of victories, culminating in John’s induction into the American Royal Barbecue Hall of Fame as a Legacy Inductee in 2012. The team continues to compete and win — and Willingham’s® seasonings, sauces, and barbecue rubs keep taking top product awards every year.
Following his success on the competition circuit and with the Memphis restaurants, John established Whamco, Inc. in 1983 to manufacture and distribute his line of award-winning W’ham® seasonings, sauces, and cookers.
Inducted
American Royal Barbecue Hall of Fame · Legacy Inductee
2012
He Knew How to Make Great Barbecue — and a Lot More
John, a former St. Louis Cardinals baseball player, was an inventor at heart. Beyond the W’ham® Turbo Cooker, he held 17 patents spanning multiple fields. Among them:
- The W’ham® T method — a prefabricated construction technique used in buildings around the world.
- The Harmonic Stress Reducer — a therapeutic device originally developed to treat his wife Marjorie’s migraine headaches. Muhammad Ali purchased one; the two men had met in 1983 and at one point discussed opening restaurants together in Memphis and Los Angeles.
- A nasal spray bottle designed to produce a fine mist when squeezed.
The patent record
Nine of John Willingham’s patents are traceable by name in the U.S. patent record, and together they have been cited as prior art in roughly 175 later patent filings between 1967 and 2023 — a fifty-six-year trail.
They span seven fields. A liquid dispenser in 1961. Concrete form surfacing in 1972. A crane boom in 1975. Two modular building systems in 1975 and 1979. Portable concrete molding in 1981. The W’ham® Turbo Cooker in 1986. And, filed at seventy-nine and granted fourteen months after his death, two designs for generating power from river current.
The cooker — the only one most people know about — ranks fifth.
His first patent has the longest reach. Filed in 1958 from an address in Independence, Missouri and granted in 1961, it covers a flexible squeeze container that discharges liquid as measured droplets or a spray, and the patent office classified it under spraying apparatus. Six decades later, filings from Johnson & Johnson’s McNeil-PPC subsidiary, from Nemera and Aptar, and from the nasal-delivery company Nasaleze still cite it as prior art. His Commercial Appeal obituary reports that he sold that patent to Johnson & Johnson for $500.
The 1981 concrete-molding patent found a second life as well: Tindall Corporation cited it across eight filings on foundations for wind turbines, three decades after it was granted. The two modular-building patents account for sixty-six citations between them, and were still being cited in 2023.
A prior-art citation is not an endorsement, a licence, or a business relationship. It means a later applicant — more often a patent examiner — judged Willingham’s work technically relevant while examining something new. That it kept happening for fifty-six years, across seven unrelated industries, is the record.
From Memphis to the World
John at the Memphis Legends Trip and Cook in Ireland — one of countless invitations from a craft that found him welcome wherever he traveled.
Enduring Genius
John died on May 15, 2013, at the age of 80 — on the very opening day of the Memphis in May World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest, the event he had competed in for 30 consecutive years. That evening, an audience of 10,000 people observed a moment of silence in his honor.
His barbecue genius lives on in every Willingham’s® sauce and seasoning.
I Believe
If you don’t believe you can,
you won’t.
If you always wonder if you should,
you will never know if you could.
And if you never try,
you will forever wonder why?
What could have been
but never was
is because you didn’t try.
Written by John H. Willingham
Dedicated to Ida Vaunceil and Elmer L. Willingham
The Future
Today, the legacy of innovation established by John Willingham continues through Willingham’s® World Champion BBQ. Under the leadership of owner and pitmaster Paul Holden, the Willingham’s® brand remains active in competition, professional kitchens, and backyard barbecue — carrying forward the balance of tradition and forward-thinking flavor that defined John’s lifetime of work.
The John Willingham Spirit of Barbecue Scholarship
In John’s memory, Willingham’s® World Champion BBQ sponsors a $1,000 scholarship, presented at the Memphis in May World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest to a greater-Memphis school team in the Junior Contest — chosen for its team spirit, teamwork, and sportsmanship: the values John carried into every competition.
Scholarship recipients
2026 — Memphis T-Stem East High School
His record. His patents. His standards. They live on.