Songwriter Allee Willis, famous for her work with Earth, Wind & Fire as well as the “Friends” theme and the “The Color Purple” Broadway song score, died Tuesday in Los Angeles. The parties really became the only place I could combine everything.”Her most fruitful collaboration, with Earth, Wind & Fire, began in 1978 after Patti LaBelle and Herbie Hancock recommended her to Verdine White, who, she said, called her up and said, “I want you to come write the next Earth, Wind & Fire album.” The next day, she said, she met up with him and co-wrote the enduring smash “September,” the first of several hits she co-wrote with or for the band, including “Boogie Wonderland.”A Variety and iHeartRadio Podcast“I, very thankfully, have a few songs that will not go away,” Willis told the New York Times, “but they’re schlepping along 900 others.” Could any song prepare you less to write ‘The Color Purple’?
But I actually loved it, because it’s that incongruity that I cherish the most in what I do.”Her vocation later in life was raconteur as much as songwriter. https://www.dailyedge.ie/taylor-swift-september-allee-wilis-4025464-May2018 Following the premiere of Swift’s Spotify Singles cover, the 28-year-old performer received kudos from none other than one of the original track's co-writers, Allee Willis. Taylor Swift's Version Of Earth Wind & Fire's "September" Slammed By Song Co-Writer. Allee Willis poses at her home, unofficially known as the “Museum of Kitsch,” in Valley Village, Calif. I cowrote all but two of the songs on the next album, ‘I Am,’ which was the album that really crossed them over to a white audience.” The group’s African American fans were sometimes surprised to find that “September” and other iconic black hits were partly the creation of a “nice Jewish girl.”Willis is survived by a brother, Kent Willis, sister, Marlin Frost, and niece, Mandy Becker.Among her many awards, Willis was a two-time Grammy winner — for “The Color Purple” as best musical theater album in 2016, and her contribution to the “Beverly Hills Cop” soundtrack three decades earlier — and was nominated for a Tony (for “The Color Purple”) and Emmy (for the “Friends” theme).Willis wrote “I’ll Be There for You” on assignment as a 60-second theme song for “Friends.” When the Rembrandts came on board, they wanted to expand it into a complete song, so contributed a bridge and a lyric for the second verse for the full-length version.“It was the last thing I ever thought would be a hit, the whitest song I ever wrote,” she told Songfacts. Of EWF, she added, “They were my favorite group, and remain so. “I’ll tell you, that’s my No. Users are reminded that they are fully responsible for their own created content and their own posts, comments and submissions and fully and effectively warrant and indemnify Journal Media in relation to such content and their ability to make such content, posts, comments and submissions available. Pretty inoffensive altogether, She was also a visual and social artist, painter, director, collector of odd artifacts and memorabilia, and a stand-up comedian and performance artist.Prudence Fenton, the animator and producer who is described by a family friend as Willis’ “partner and soulmate,” was said to be “in total shock” over her best friend’s sudden death, which occurred just after 6 p.m.“I’m a serious party thrower,” she told the Times. I mean it’s slow but I wouldn’t have ever thought to describe it as drugging a turtle slow but anyway.Journal Media does not control and is not responsible for user created content, posts, comments, submissions or preferences. “I’m very, very grateful for it, and when they were promoting ‘The Color Purple,’ all of these newspaper reviews… I mean, here I’ve written for Earth, Wind & Fire, I’ve written with James Brown, and the only song they would ever mention that I wrote is this ‘Friends’ theme. Allee Willis.