New York, NY (Top40 Charts) Singer, songwriter and keyboard player Michelle Willis' is to release her second album, Just One Voice on April 8 2022 via GroundUP Music. In celebration of the upcoming release the, first single "Green Grey" has been shared on YouTube. The album, produced with Fab Dupont (Andre 3000, Gregory Porter) features guest performances by
David Crosby, Michael McDonald, Grégoire Maret, Becca
Stevens and Taylor Ashton.
Just One Voice was written during the intensity of non-stop travel, penned from the cramped seats of buses, planes and countless green rooms. One night, out on the open road, Willis played the title track for Crosby, her mentor and bandmate, who urged, "No one else sounds like this. This is you. You have to make this record." Shortly thereafter she was able to secure a prestigious grant from the Canada Council for the Arts which set the recording process in motion.
"This song is meant to be playful, fun and flirtatious, in the (sort of?) innocent first moments of attraction," Willis says of 'Green Grey.' "I spent a few years following the trope of being a young, fun escape to other people's sadness. That got old, and thankfully so did I. I originally heard this as a combo of Bonnie Raitt's 'Something To Talk About' but with the energy of
Simon & Garfunkel's 'Cecilia.'"
Of the rest of the tracklisting on Just One Voice, Willis notes, "I originally thought these songs were going to be about 'being strong alone' and all this 'ra ra I can do it by myself'-ness, but in the end, looking at the lyrics I realized they were about the process of getting there, how there's all sorts of ugly feelings to sort through once we're on our own that I needed to look at. I do feel stronger and wider for acknowledging them now, but hoo boy, can they be uncomfortable to look at."