Victor Willis, who co-founded the Village People and co-wrote 'Y.M.C.A.,' dies at 74

NAPA, CALIFORNIA - SEPTEMBER 05: Victor Willis of Village People performs during the 2021 BottleRock Napa Valley music festival at Napa Valley Expo on September 05, 2021 in Napa, California. (Photo by Tim Mosenfelder/WireImage)

NEW YORK — 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.”

Willis 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, Willis 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 hit 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.

Willis also starred in the 1980 movie “Can’t Stop the Music,” a widely ridiculed comedy starring the Village People and Steve Guttenberg and directed by Nancy Walker. Critic Rex Reed called it “one of the silliest movies ever made.”

Village People music is the backbone of pool parties, high school dances, weddings, proms, bar mitzvahs, games and whenever an uplifting mood is needed. The songs also played at gay marches and the White House.

“We will think of Victor every time ‘Y.M.C.A.’ is played, like today, and all throughout this July Fourth Birthday week,” President Donald Trump wrote on social media Wednesday. “My condolences to his wonderful family and group, Victor Willis will be sorely missed.”

While musicians like Neil Young, John Fogerty, Phil Collins, Panic! At The Disco and the estates of Leonard Cohen, Tom Petty and Prince sent cease-and-desist letters to stop Trump from using their music, Willis said he didn’t feel he was endorsing Trump when the song played.

Willis was born in Texas and grew up in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood of San Francisco. When he moved to New York, he went to a YMCA on West 63rd Street in Manhattan, which inspired the hit song.

The ownership of Village People’s songs came into doubt decades after the hits, and in 2015, a federal jury ruled that Willis was entitled to 50 per cent copyright ownership in the United States of 13 of the group’s songs, including “Y.M.C.A.”

After a series of arrests on drug-related charges that resulted in a rehab stint, Willis told The Associated Press 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, Willis 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.

Mark Kennedy, The Associated Press