EP55: Allee Willis - Songwriter of the 'Friends' theme song

Silent Giants with Corey Cambridge

Welcome to another episode of Silent Giants!

Today’s special guest is Allee Willis the songwriter behind Earth, Wind and Fire’s classic song ‘September’. Allee is also the songwriter of ‘I’ll Be There For You’ by The Rembrandts which became the theme song for the hit TV show ‘Friends’. She also co-wrote the Tony and Grammy-winning Broadway musical, The Color Purple. And currently a major motion picture based on the musical is currently being produced by Steven Spielberg, Oprah Winfrey, Quincy Jones, and Scott Sanders.[5] In 2018 Allee was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.

In this interview she dials in to the podcast to share her journey of growing up in Detroit during the height of the Motown era, getting her first job at Columbia records as a copywriter, working under Clive Davis, meeting Janis Joplin a week before she died, the making of Earth, Wind and Fire’s ‘September’, the creation of the Friends theme song ‘I’ll be There for You’, co-writing The Color Purple musical and a whooole lot more.

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