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ABOVE: The back of Childstar, the only album Willis ever released.
FACING PAGE: Willis and her parents, Rose and Nate Willis, at her sister Marlen’s wedding.

heart.
“I was so sick of hearing what
people were saying about Detroit. I’d
tell them that’s where I’m from, and
I’d get a groan, or a ‘That’s so sad,’”
she says. “But that’s not how I felt. I
felt like I was descended from royal-
ty. I thought it was the most soulful
population in the world.”
Willis would talk about this with
her friend Lily Tomlin, also a former
Detroiter. They’d try to think up a
project they could do together to cel-
ebrate Detroit, like a Hall of Fame.
“But Lily’s always working,” Willis
says. “I thought, what can I do that
I can do on my own, but she can
be involved in. I know two things: I
can write music, and I can throw a
party.”
So she embarked on creating,
and self-funding, “The D,” along
with Detroit composer Andrae
Alexander. Between 2013 and 2015,
Willis recorded 70 singalongs
around Detroit of a song she
wrote, a love song to the city that
ended up featuring 5,000 vocalists
and musicians — Tomlin, Martha
Reeves, Ricki Lake and Mary
Wilson among them. From there,
she created a video which debuted
last year at the DIA.
She’s not done with Detroit,
though. After all these years
behind the scenes, she’s feeling the
urge to be in the spotlight. So she’s
bringing her one-woman show,
Allee Willis Loves Detroit! to town
this month.
It’s another love letter to Detroit.
It’s a walk through her own life. It’s
a chance for singalongs to her —
and our — favorite hits.
“My favorite songwriters were
the ones writing about their life
and real things,” Willis says. “That’s

what I’ve always done. And this is
another version of what I do.
“I write very specific perfor-
mances for where I am. So this
Detroit show — I’ve had a lot of
my experiences there. It’s very
funny; there’s lots of calamity. I call
my shows ‘party performances,’”
she says. “It’s like me trying to
throw a party on the stage. I do
an auction. I do as much comedy
as music, and [Andrae] Alexander
stands at the keyboard the whole
time. I try to make it feel like being
in my living room.
“It should be pandemonium. I
can’t wait.”
She also has her favorite chef
“in the whole world” on stage
with her. Chef Greg, owner of Chef
Greg’s Soul ’N’ the Wall on Curtis
Street in Detroit, bought his res-
taurant from former owner Eddie
Kendrix of the Temptations, who
would hang out there.
“I was driving down the street
one day, and he’s got this enormous
mural of himself on the outside wall.
I stopped to take a photo of it and
Chef Greg ran out and said, ‘Take a
picture of the real thing, fool!’” she
says. “He’d just seen a documentary
on me, and he recognized me. Now
it’s my office away from home. He
named a sandwich after me, the
Boogaloo Wonderland.”
Despite the acclaim, the records
sold, the success in most everything
she touches — Allee Willis is not a
household name. But this has been
a big year for Willis. More awards,
more acclaim, taking what she loves
doing to yet another level.
“I always say I’m the world’s
best-kept secret,” Willis says. “But
I feel like this year I might get dis-
covered.” •

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May 10 • 2018

43