Eddie “Chank” Willis was born on the 3rd of June 1936 in Mississippi. In January of 1959 Willis became a member of the group that would come to be known as ‘The Funk Brothers’, a now legendary collection of black and white musicians who served as Motown’s house band throughout the ‘60s and early ‘70s. Willis became an instrumental part of the label’s recording operation in 1959. Unlike most of the Funk Brothers who were jazz musicians, Willis came from more of a country and blues background.
Collectively, the Funk Brothers played on several number one hits and all time classics by legends of the genre like Marvin Gaye, the Supremes, the Miracles, the Four Tops, and Mary Wells. Willis’s many credits include songs like the Temptations’ “The Way You Do the Things You Do” and “(I Know) I’m Losing You”, Stevie Wonder’s “My Cherie Amour” and “I Was Made to Love Her”, Marvin Gaye’s “Can I Get a Witness”, and Gladys Knight & the Pips’ “Freedom Train”, on which he unleashes psych-swamp licks that nod to his Southern upbringing in country and blues.
Over the years Willis developed a distinct sound and is known for his style of muted guitar riffs, which added a whole new dimension and tone to many of Motown Records hit songs. However Willis’s main duty when performing or recording with Joe Messina and Robert White (other Funk Brothers guitarists) was to add spontaneous funky fills and rhythms on top of the glue that Messina and White had formed. They helped to create the solid foundation that Willis built on top of,
Unlike most Funk Brothers, Willis was also an active road musician. During the early sixties Willis toured with the likes of the Marvelettes and Mary Wells and from the mid seventies to the nineties Willis spent almost two decades playing throughout the world with the influential Motown band ‘The Four Tops’. Willis’s most prolific work can be heard on the early Mary Wells and Marvelettes recordings.
Willis was most influenced by some of the greats such as Chet Atkins, Wes Montgomery, and Albert King. At seventy-one years of age Willis is still going strong and still playing in ‘The Funk Brothers’