Victor Willis, who co-founded the Village People, co-wrote the disco group's classic hits Y.M.C.A., Macho Man and In the Navy and delighted crowds while dressed as the band’s helmeted and mustachioed police officer, has died. He was 74.
“We are profoundly sad to announce the death of Victor Willis, lead singer of Village People,” the group posted on its official Facebook page. The cause was identified as “a short but aggressive illness.”
Victor was a musician-actor who, among other things, had appeared on Broadway in The Wiz when he decided to cash in on the disco craze in 1977 by joining a group made up of beefy, macho-looking guys dressed as a biker, a construction worker, a cop, a cowboy and a Native American chief.
With producer Jacques Morali and Henri Belolo, Morali’s business partner, Victor founded the six-member Village People. The idea came to them while partying at an after-hours gay nightclub in the West Village of Manhattan. The group’s self-titled debut album was released in 1977.
In 1978, the group released two albums, Macho Man and Cruisin’ — which featured the international hit Y.M.C.A., a song that peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard chart. A year later, Village People released the album Go West, which included In the Navy, a song that peaked at No. 3 on the chart. Macho Man peaked at No. 25 in 1978.
In 2020, Congress described Y.M.C.A. — with its infectious chorus of “It’s fun to stay at the Y.M.C.A.” and an accompanying dance spelling out the letters — as “an American phenomenon” and added the song to the National Recording Registry. In 2021, it was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.
After a series of arrests on drug-related charges that resulted in a rehab stint, Victor told a news agency in 2012 that his life had turned around. “Life is fine. I went through whatever I went through, but everything is going great now,” he said.
In May, Victor and the Village People — he was the only original member — sang Happy Birthday and Y.M.C.A. for Secretary of State Marco Rubio during an event in India.
For more updates, join/follow our WhatsApp, Telegram and YouTube channels.