Victor Willis, Village People frontman and 'Y.M.C.A.' singer, dead at 74

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Set us as preferred Victor Willis, the Village People singer who co-wrote some the band’s biggest hits including “Y.M.C.A.,” has died.He was 74.The band announced Willis’ death in a statement to social media, saying, “We are profoundly sad to announce the death of Victor Willis, lead singer of Village People,” adding that “Victor passed on Monday June 30, 2026 of a short but aggressive illness.”Willis, born July 1, 1951, in Texas but a San Francisco native, grew up around gospel music in his minister father’s Baptist church.

As a young musical prodigy, Willis said he joined in sessions with Dizzy Gillespie and his band in high school, the Ballads, opened for the Temptations.After school, he moved to musical theater and Broadway, performing in “Hair,” which led to runs in “Two Gentlemen of Verona” and “The Wiz.” That latter production introduced him to his first wife, future “The Cosby Show” star Phylicia Rashad.In 1977, French producer Jacques Morali asked him to sing on a collection of disco tracks under the project name the Village People.

The sessions went so well that Morali asked Willis to front the group, which adopted campy archetypes of masculinity — cop, cowboy and construction worker among them — in their stage costumes.Paired with bubbly disco grooves and chant-along choruses, the band became gay icons overnight.

Entertainment & Arts David Clayton-Thomas, the lead singer of Blood, Sweat & Tears whose husky, high-strung tenor on ‘Spinning Wheel’ and ‘And When I Die’ helped propel the band’s popularity in the late 1960s, has died.In just two years, the band released 1978’s “Cruisin,” which featured “Y.M.C.A.,” a hit that reached No.1 in 17 countries.

The same year, the band released “Macho Man,” which included the title track and “Key West.”...