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Victor Willis, who co-founded the Village People<\/a> and co-wrote their biggest hits, died Tuesday, June 30, after a \u201cshort but aggressive illness,\u201d\u00a0according to a post on the singer\u2019s and the Village People\u2019s Facebook<\/a> pages<\/a>. His wife posted a similar statement on the singer\u2019s own Facebook page<\/a>. Willis was 74 years old.<\/p>\n Formed in 1977, the Village People were effectively the concept band of producer\/composer Jacques Morali and Henri Belolo, the duo behind Can\u2019t Stop Productions. Morali dreamed up the group after stumbling into a Greenwich Village gay bar where \u201cboys decked out in butch drag were dancing around a man called Felip\u00e9 Rose,\u201d who was wearing an Indigenous American costume,\u00a0as Tim Lawrence writes in Love Saves the Day: A History of American Dance Music Culture, 1970-1979<\/em>. Willis was enlisted to sing backup on a concept album about gay New York life, but eventually convinced Morali he should be singing lead. The band\u2019s self-titled 1977 debut, conceptualized and produced by Morali, was a landmark in the expansion of Eurodisco in the United States, as well as an international hit.<\/p>\n Second album Macho Man<\/em> continued to push the Eurodisco sound, cementing the core Village People lineup of costumed, mostly mustachioed men modeled on American archetypes. Disco-at-large was boiling over, leaving its imprint on pop and rock through blockbuster remixes of songs like Rod Stewart\u2019s \u201cDa Ya Think I\u2019m Sexy?\u201d Into this combustible moment, the Village People unleashed \u201cY.M.C.A.,\u201d\u00a0an anthem of lustrous orchestral motifs and suggestive lyrics from third album Cruisin\u2019<\/em>. Co-written and sung by Willis, who wore the police and naval officer costumes, \u201cY.M.C.A.\u201d dialed down none of the band\u2019s ostentatious style but became ubiquitous anyway, unreservedly embraced by most of the mainstream. As disco promoter Kenn Friedman told Lawrence in Love Saves the Day<\/em>, the album \u201cdid not happen in gay clubs but in straight ones.\u201d The Village People, he said, became, \u201cthe first gay-to-straight \u2018crossover\u2019 group.\u201d<\/p>\n Willis, who was heterosexual, was happy to play up homoeroticism on stage and on record but joined the group in presenting a more muted media presence as their fame rocketed. (Said Rose at the time, \u201cI\u2019ll tell the gay press I\u2019m gay. If the straight press asks, we tell them it\u2019s none of their business. Or \u2018none of their fucking business!\u2019 depending on how they ask.\u201d) The ambiguity allowed the group to operate on the border between queer and straight culture, becoming one of the few disco artists\u2014alongside Donna Summer and Chic\u2014to achieve continued success, rather than scoring one-off or scattered dancefloor hits.<\/p>\n Fourth album Go West<\/em>, again produced by Morali, provided the group\u2019s final hits: the title track and \u201cIn the Navy.\u201d By the end of the 1970s, the band and movemenet were losing goodwill, loathed by both the hip disco cognoscenti and a reactionary macho counterinsurgence that culminated in the vinyl furnace at Disco Demolition Night<\/a> in Chicago. (A Village People-soundtracked film from 1980, Can\u2019t Stop the Music<\/em>, was renamed from Discoland: The Music Never Ends<\/em> and presented a straight-coded version of the band, in an unsuccessful bid to dissociate them from disco.) Yet the Village People\u2019s hits endured in a way few other disco novelties could, forever blasted out at weddings and occasionally ill-fitting public events.<\/p>\n Willis left the band in the early 1980s and played no role in its initial reunions. He was arrested on drugs and weapons charges in 2006, and, in 2012, successfully secured<\/a> a better royalty rate from Can\u2019t Stop Productions and publisher Scorpio Music for his role as a Village People co-writer. Their legal battles continued until 2017, when Willis accepted an out-of-court settlement and rejoined the Village People, which again faced legal action, this time from his former bandmates, until the Willis-fronted lineup secured the band\u2019s trademark.<\/p>\n The Village People continued to tour and release music, as well as making contradictory statements about its comfort with Donald Trump\u2019s adoption of \u201cY.M.C.A.\u201d and \u201cMacho Man\u201d at rallies. After initially saying<\/a> he had asked Trump\u2019s 2020 election campaign to stop using his music, Willis later took a more ambiguous stance and finally accepted an invitation to perform at Turning Point USA\u2019s inaugural ball in January 2025, as well as a high-profile pre-inauguration Trump rally. Former member Jim Newman said<\/a> that month that, besides Willis, the original band \u201cwould never\u201d have supported Trump.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n