R.I.P.: Allee Willis, Songwriter

Songwriter Allee Willis, one of the music industry’s most colorful figures, whose eclectic credits as a writer and co-writer included Earth, Wind & Fire’s “September” and the “Friends” theme song, died on Tuesday at a hospital in Los Angeles.

Allee Willis

She was 72 according to the NY Times and the cause was cardiac arrest, acording to her publicist, Ellyn Solis.

The animator and producer Prudence Fenton, Ms. Willis’s partner of 27 years, posted a photo on Instagram with the caption: “Rest in Boogie Wonderland,” referring to the Earth, Wind & Fire disco hit that Ms. Willis wrote with Bob Lind.

Willis, who grew up in Detroit, never learned to play music. But she was drawn to Motown as a child, and said she learned how to become a songwriter by sitting on the lawn outside the record company’s studios and listening to the rhythms seeping through the building’s walls.

She attributed her career to her love of Motown.

“I’m so insanely attached to Motown and all the music that was coming out of Detroit, and it gave me a love for that kind of music,” she told The Detroit Free Press last year. “There’s no question: Had I grown up anywhere else, I would not ever have been a songwriter. Because I certainly don’t have the skills to be it.”