Wesley Willis
| Wesley Willis | |
|---|---|
Willis in October 2000
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| Background information | |
| Birth name | Wesley Lawrence Willis |
| Born | May 31, 1963 |
| Origin | Chicago, Illinois |
| Died | August 21, 2003 (aged 40) Skokie, Illinois |
| Genres | Outsider music, comedy music, punk rock |
| Instruments | Vocals, keyboards |
| Years active | 1976–2003 (as artist) 1989–2003 (as musician) |
| Labels | Alternative Tentacles, American Recordings |
| Associated acts |
Wesley Willis Fiasco Monster Voodoo Machine |
| Website | Wesley Willis on Alternative Tentacles |
Wesley Lawrence Willis (May 31, 1963 – August 21, 2003) was an American singer-songwriter and visual artist from Chicago. Diagnosed with schizophrenia in 1989, Willis began a career as an underground singer-songwriter in the outsider music tradition, with songs featuring his bizarre, humorous and often obscene lyrics sung over the auto accompaniment feature on his Technics KN keyboard.
Willis gained an enormous cult following in the 1990s, mainly upon the release of Greatest Hits in 1995 on the Alternative Tentacles label. The album was released at the urging of punk rock pioneer Jello Biafra who compiled its track list. In addition to a large body of solo musical work, Willis fronted his own punk rock band, the Wesley Willis Fiasco. He was also a visual artist long before his forays into music, producing hundreds of intricate, unusual, colored ink-pen drawings, most of them of Chicago streetscapes and CTA buses.
During some of Wesley Willis' most creative years in the late 1980s well into the mid 1990s, Willis had found a home at Chicago Trax Recording at their Halsted Street facility. Daily, Willis would stop in to say hello and hang with his new friends, the Trax family, which included artists such as Ministry & Lard, owner Reid Hyams and his entire staff, and many of Chicago's most talented artists, musicians, recording engineers and producers. Willis wrote songs about many of the people he met at Chicago Trax and recorded them at Chicago Trax.
Willis was born in Chicago, Illinois on May 31, 1963. According to the Los Angeles Times, "Willis grew up in Chicago's projects as one of 10 children of parents who had a violent relationship and separated when he was young. He spent time in several foster homes and was essentially raised by two older brothers, who went with him from home to home."
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