willis earl beal: acousmatic sorcery

Willis Earl Beal isn’t an easy person to find. He isn’t on Facebook and never had a MySpace page. All he had was some flyers tacked to the wall of a used bookstore on Chicago’s west side. It started “I want friends & stuff” and ended “I am not a Weasel”, signed WILLIS EARL BEAL and a phone number. The album’s 11 songs are taken from a series of recordings Beal made while living in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He arrived in Albuquerque without a plan, a place, or enough money to live off and began singing warm, visceral and moving tunes to help him cope while sleeping rough. He spent days drawing and printing up flyers, distributing them all over his new city. Eventually Beal found work as the night porter at a motel. It was during the late-night shifts that the 27-year-old musician from the south side of Chicago taught himself to make music. As the Summer came to an end, Willis plotted his journey back to Chicago. While he traveled across America he continued to receive phone calls as the flyers made their own journey. One caller introduced himself as “Mos Def” and together they plotted to write a script based on Willis’s life, with Mos playing the lead. One caller asked for help with his homework. Another caller using the name Steve The Tranny asked for career advice and the two planned to audition for a new show called the X- Factor. Neither made the cut.