Eddie Willis was born in Grenada, Mississippi, in 1936 and contracted polio as a child, which left him walking with a stick for life. He taught himself guitar from radio station WDIA out of Memphis, blending the finger-picking of Chet Atkins with the jazz and blues of Wes Montgomery and Albert King. His family moved to Detroit in 1950 when he was 14, and he played the local band circuit until Berry Gordy hired him as a session musician. His first Motown session was Marv Johnson’s Come to Me in 1959, and he stayed with the Funk Brothers until 1972.
Willis earned the nickname Chank from his muted guitar riffs, played with the palm resting on the strings near the bridge and timed to the snare, turning the guitar into a percussion part. He played on Please Mr. Postman, The Way You Do the Things You Do, You Keep Me Hangin’ On and I Was Made to Love Her. Paid flat session rates without royalties, he later lost his home and guitars and lived on Social Security and disability; a 2015 benefit concert in Detroit was held to help him. Phil Collins brought him in for the 2010 album Going Back, and he died in 2018 at 82 in Gore Springs, Mississippi, of complications from polio.
- Willis played a Gibson Firebird early on and later a Gibson ES-335.
- He used an electric Coral sitar on the Supremes’ No Matter What Sign You Are.
- Fellow Funk Brother Dennis Coffey highlighted the Southern feel in his playing.
- Colleagues described him as mild-mannered and free of ego in the studio.
- The Funk Brothers received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2013, and Willis attended.
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