A

llee Willis, award-win-
ning songwriter and
Detroit native, died Dec.
24, 2019, in Los Angeles at age
72 of cardiac arrest.
Willis, who gained inspi-
ration from Motown for her
own work, wrote such well-
known songs as “September”
and “Boogie Wonderland” in
collaboration with Earth, Wind
& Fire; she won two Grammy
Awards for her work on
Beverly Hills Cop and the Tony-

nominated Broadway musical
The Color Purple, which she
co-wrote. She is also remem-
bered for “I’
ll be There for You,
”
the theme song for the TV show
Friends, and many more songs.
A graduate of Mumford
High School, Willis returned to
Detroit from Los Angeles more
than 30 times in recent years
to celebrate her hometown by
filming 70 or so “sing-alongs”
in different Detroit locations,
including Temple Israel in West

Bloomfield, with citizens and
celebrities singing “The D,
”
a song she wrote as the city’
s
“unofficial, official theme song.
”
She then threw a party at the
Detroit Institute of Arts in
September 2017 to debut the
video made from all the sing-
alongs.
“I love Detroit. It’
s my favor-
ite city in the world,
” the 1965
Mumford graduate told the JN
in 2017.
Several times, she joined
Detroit expats in returning to
the city for the annual Detroit
Homecoming event. One year,
she was a presenting performer.
Growing up on Sorrento
Street in Detroit, she was known
by her birth name, Alta. Though
she dropped out of Hebrew
school, her grandfather was
an Orthodox rabbi in Detroit
named Solomon Shulman. And,
she said in a May 10, 2018,
JN cover story, “I can under-
stand some things in Yiddish.

I feel Jewish. I talk about being
Jewish. It’
s part of who I am.
”
In that story, she also defend-
ed Detroit. “I was so sick of
hearing what people were say-
ing about Detroit. I’
d tell them
that’
s where I’
m from, and I’
d
get a groan, or a ‘
That’
s so sad.
’

But that’
s not how I felt. I felt
like I was descended from roy-
alty. I thought it was the most
soulful population in the world.
”
Temple Israel was the only
location that wasn’
t in Detroit
proper. There, according to the
JN story, she recorded some
of her Jewish friends from
Mumford singing her Detroit
song; they included longtime
friend Sherry (Erman) Stewart,
Joanne (Parr) Kraft, Karen and
David Disner, Marsha (Diem)
Fischer and Marcy Feldman.
Stewart of Bloomfield Hills
met Willis at Mumford when
they were 15 or 16.
“She was always an adven-
turous, creative person, great
in sports and up for anything,”
Stewart recalled. “She had a
real love for Detroit and when
she came back to do projects,
we would always see one
another. She’
d keep me up to
date on what she was doing
… I talked to her a couple of
weeks ago.
“She was a people person
with a great personality.
People were attracted to her
all the time. When she came
here, she embraced the people
she met here, even people who
didn’
t have a connection to her
past. I would kid her that she
had a lot of groupies; but that
was the way she was — a very
inclusive person.
“I’
ll miss her,” Stewart said.
“She was always bigger than
life; even as a young person,
she’
d come up with these ideas
and, down the road, they all
happened. As a good friend,
I told her I felt like I’
m her
mother with so many things to

Allee Willis

Homegrown Songwriter

Credited Her Legacy
to Detroit

KERI GUTEN COHEN STORY DEVELOPMENT EDITOR

JANUARY 2 • 2020 | 39

Soul
of blessed memory

COURTESY OF ALLEE WILLIS

continued on page 40