Victor Willis, the founding lead singer of Village Individuals and co-writer of “YMCA,” “Macho Man” and “Within the Navy,” died on Tuesday. He was 74.
“We’re profoundly unhappy to announce the dying of Victor Willis, lead singer of Village Individuals. Victor handed on Monday June 30, 2026 of a brief however aggressive sickness. Privateness is requested,” it was posted on the Village Individuals official Fb web page.
The son of a Baptist preacher, Willis grew up in San Francisco, the place he developed his voice singing in his father’s church. With coaching in performing and dance, he relocated to New York and joined the Negro Ensemble Firm, showing in quite a few musicals and performs, together with the unique Broadway manufacturing of “The Wiz” in 1976.
His profession modified course after he was launched to French disco producer Jacques Morali, who approached him with an audacious pitch: that Willis would entrance his new album and make it a large hit. Willis agreed, and the debut Village Individuals album was launched in July 1977. After an look on “American Bandstand” prompted demand for a dwell act, Willis and Morali assembled a full group of performers round him – the archetypal costumed characters who would turn into some of the recognizable ensembles in pop historical past.
Willis went on to co-write all the group’s greatest singles. “YMCA,” launched in 1978, turned their signature hit, adopted by “Within the Navy” and “Go West.” Village Individuals’s theatrical mix of disco rhythms and outsized masculine archetypes – cop, cowboy, development employee – propelled them to mainstream ubiquity.
In March 2020, the Library of Congress described “YMCA” as “an American phenomenon” and added the tune to the Nationwide Recording Registry. The next 12 months, the tune was inducted into the Grammy Corridor of Fame.
Willis departed Village Individuals in 1980 because the group ready for the musical movie “Can’t Cease the Music,” although he contributed lyrics to 2 of its songs. He left once more in 1983 after a quick return. Within the years that adopted, he struggled with substance abuse earlier than coming into the Betty Ford Clinic in 2007.
In Could 2012, Willis received a landmark ruling within the first case heard relating to the Copyright Act of 1976, which permits recording artists and writers to reclaim their work. In 2017, Willis reached an out-of-court settlement with Henri Belolo, Morali’s enterprise associate, and returned because the group’s lead singer, ushering in a brand new chapter that included the discharge of “A Village Individuals Christmas” in 2018.
