Word up? More Willis

As I've probably said before, The Daily Growl isn't a request show. But I do respond to stuff sometimes, you know. Recently I've had a surprising amount of people getting in touch with me about Willis. Given all the much more famous people I've blogged about, why Willis, the young, deep-voiced country-soul singer from London whose last release was about three years ago? Well, apparently her cover of codpiece funkster Cameo's Word Up was on CSI lately, and it seems to have gone down well. I first posted on Willis a while back, and my posting of Word Up and other tracks seems to have aroused some interest. Unfortunately the files aren't available any more. But I'm rectifying that now. So for all those who asked for it, here it is again, in all its rough-edged glory.

Download: Willis - Word Up

This track was released on an EP contining another cover, this time of the gospel standard Give Me That Old Time Religion, given a fine old down-home treatment. This EP, which came out at the end of 2003 was the last widely-available recording from Willis, before she was unceremoniously dropped by her record label 679 (also recently late of the Futureheads).

Download: Willis - Old Time Religion

From my cursory surfing, it seems to be pretty hard to find her album Come Get Some to download anywhere, so here are some tracks from that LP to whet your appetite. However, it does seem that you can still buy both Come Get Some and the Take You High EP on Amazon - so if you're keen for more get over there and buy! The planned live shows obviously haven't worked out this year unfortunately, but here's hoping some for next year. In the meantime, there are a couple of new tracks on Willis' myspace, including a cover of 9 to 5. Nice.

Download: Willis - Take You High
Download: Willis - Heal My Soul
Download: Willis - November