52 | APRIL 4 • 2024 

State University shirts. The 
documentary spotlights all 
the iconic scenes of Detroit, 
including Motown, classic 
cars, the Riverfront and the Joe 
Louis fist statue. 
The “I Love Allee Willis” 
mural right near Willis’ 
favorite restaurant, Soul-N-
The Wall on Curtis off of 
Wyoming and near Mumford, 
is also prominently featured. 
To honor his late friend, 
Chef Greg Beard renamed 
his most popular sandwich 
the “Boogaloo Wonderland” 
after the Earth, Wind and 
Fire Grammy-nominated hit 
“Boogie Wonderland,” which 
Willis co-wrote.

BA-DE-YA 
“We put out the single, 
‘September,’ in three weeks 
and my life changed. It was 
an outrageous break that they 
gave me,” says Willis in the 
documentary about the Earth, 
Wind and Fire hit. That was 
1978.
“‘September’ was the fifth 
most successful song in the 
history of music,” EW&F band 
member Verdine White tells 
us in the film. Its “Ba-De-Ya” 
vocal riff is classic.
As equally important was 
Willis’ natural ability to accept 
everyone for who they were.
“
Allee was very inclusive,” 
says Fenton. Verdine said that 
with Allee, ‘there was no race.’ 
And I thought that was a really 
high compliment.”
The first Motown song that 
Willis listened to was “Money” 
by Barrett Strong.
“
And that was when my life 
changed,” says Willis, who 
lived in a Jewish neighborhood 
in Detroit. “I’d listen to DJ 
Martha Jean the Queen reli-
giously. It was my first intro-

duction to Black music — and 
not just Motown.”
Back then, there were only 
two Black radio stations in 
Detroit. “I was always twisting 
the dial down to the Black 
stations. I’d have radio sta-
tion battles with my dad. At 
Mumford, the school was half-
white Jewish and half-Black 
and ne’er the twain shall meet,” 
Willis said.

THE MOTOWN SOUND
“There’s no question that I 
wouldn’t have been a songwrit-
er if it wasn’t for growing up in 
Motown,” Willis tells viewers.
 “
As soon as I got home from 
school, I would jump in the 
car and drive around and lis-
ten to the radio. Motown was 
literally my babysitter. I would 
go to the Motown house — I 
never went in — and I would 
sit outside on the lawn. You 
could hear the music coming 
through the walls. That music 
saved me,” Willis adds about 
her self-described chaotic 
homelife.
“One of the most major 
influences of Motown on me 
was that you could take what-
ever problems you may be 
experiencing in your everyday 
life and make it upbeat. Music 
can lift you up. It’s just a way of 
reaching people.”
Willis also reveled in hang-
ing out at her dad’s Detroit 
scrapyard on the weekends, 
a precursor to becoming a 
world-renown collector of 
trinkets and treasures. Colorful 
scenes from the ’50s in the 
documentary spotlight the 
scrapyard, which was just 
down the street from the 
Heidelberg Project, an integral 
influence on Willis’ art style.
“Going to the scrapyard was 
the thrill of my life. To me, it 

didn’t look like junk. To me, 
they were all toys,” she tells us 
of the Saturdays spent climb-
ing on piles of crushed cars, 
assorted junk and artifacts.
“I love Detroit even more 
than I have kvelled about it 
before,” Willis said about her 
next mammoth brainchild. “I 
was so tired of people saying 
bad things about Detroit.” 
So, she set out to prove the 
naysayers wrong when she 
decided to write a song hon-
oring her beloved hometown 
and calling it Detroit’s “official, 
unofficial theme song.” She 
wrote, arranged and pro-
duced “The D” with Andrae 
Alexander and got 5,000 
Detroiters — “the greatest 
number of lead vocalists ever 
assembled on one recording” 
— to sing the song.
Over a period of five years, 
Willis flew back and forth 30 
times from L.A. to Detroit 
to record and film 70 sing-a-

longs in Detroit locations and 
even a sing-along at Temple 
Israel in West Bloomfield (the 
only non-Detroit locale).
“The footage from the mak-
ing of ‘The D’ is incredible,” 
Fenton says. “
Allee just want-
ed to include everybody in 
Detroit — from the people at 
the Detroit Yacht Club to the 
people in a laundromat. It was 
such a positive story.”
Since 1978, Willis kept the 
camera rolling, and audienc-
es of The World According to 
Allee Willis will be treated to a 
front-row, behind-the-scenes 
look into her complex life and 
relationships. 
As she walks through 
Greektown, Willis hears a 
saxophonist on the street 
playing her hit song, 
“September.
” She does a double-
take and goes up to the man 
and shouts, “Hey, that’s my 
song. You’re playing my song.
” 
Ba-De-Ya. 

Allee Willis 
at Detroit 
Homecoming 
2017 at Michigan 
Central Station. 

ARTS&LIFE
DOCUMENTARY

PHOTO BY JULIE SMITH YOLLES 

continued from page 51

