Chris Willis
| Chris Willis | |
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| Background information | |
| Birth name | Christopher Willis |
| Born |
February 26, 1969 Dayton, Ohio, United States |
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| Years active | 1986–present |
| Associated acts |
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| Website | chriswillismusic |
Christopher "Chris" Willis (born February 26, 1969) is an American singer, songwriter and record producer. Although initially a gospel singer, he later received international attention for his collaborations with house music artist David Guetta, including the songs "Just a Little More Love", "Love Don't Let Me Go, "Love Is Gone", "Tomorrow Can Wait", "Everytime We Touch" (with Steve Angello and Sebastian Ingrosso), Would I Lie To You (with Cedric Gervalis) and "Gettin' Over You."
Originally a gospel singer, with the Heritage Singers and others, he was featured on the pop-classical album Handel's Messiah – A Soulful Celebration in 1993, singing a contemporary version of "Every Valley Shall Be Exalted". His first job after college in Alabama was touring with a group that sang hundreds of shows in churches over a two-year period. In the mid-1990s, he toured as backup vocalist for Twila Paris. In 1996, he released his debut self-titled album, for which he wrote or co-wrote eight of the eleven songs, and earned a nomination for Best R&B Album at the 1996 Nashville Music Awards. That year, he opened on tour for Mark Lowry, and was one of several featured singers in the musical showcase Emmanuel, a national tour put together by Nashville producer Norman Miller. The tour spawned an album, which won a GMA Dove Award in 1998 for Special Event Album of the Year. He did mostly gospel until 1998 when he signed with a small music label. The label was bought out by a large corporation and Willis took that as a cue to move on. During this time he also worked to resolve the "angst" from being closeted about his sexuality, "I always felt like God really understood—but that wasn't the message I was receiving in the church. So, when I moved out on my own I really internalized that message that God makes us who we are and that it's up to us to embrace that or not. I chose to embrace all those things as freedom, and that freedom begat the freedom I experience now." He cites his internalized struggle as important to his transitioning out of gospel music,"I think there's this unspoken denial that you go through in gospel—maybe so in other musical art forms too—but I just felt for me it just wasn't easy to keep perpetuating that." However, on June 2, 2014 Willis married his best friend of 25 years Jacqueline Leiske.
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