Willie Hutch born 6 December 1944

William McKinley Hutchison (December 6, 1944 – September 19, 2005), better known as Willie Hutch, was an American singer, songwriter as well as a record producer and recording artist for the Motown record label during the 1970s and 1980s. 

Hutch was born in Los Angeles, shifting with his mother to Dallas as a small child, where he lived with his two brothers, one sister, grandmother and aunt. He loved gospel, jazz and rhythm and blues, and showed an aptitude for playing instruments and arranging while a student at Booker T Washington high school, Dallas. As a teenager he led his own doo-wop band, the Ambassadors, and began writing songs. He joined the Marines, serving a two-year tour of duty. After settling in Los Angeles, he began his forays into the music business. He first came to the attention of the music business in 1964 when his debut single 'Love Has Put Me Down' was released by the Soul City Records label. 

In 1965 met photographer Lamonte McLemore, who was forming a vocal quintet called the Versatiles based around two former winners of the Miss Bronze America contest. Signed by popular singer Johnny Rivers - who insisted they change their name to the Fifth Dimension - they cut Hutch's I'll Be Loving You Forever as their debut single. The Fifth Dimension went on to become one of America's most popular groups. Hutch penned several more tracks for the band and co-produced their 1967 album Up, Up And Away. Willie himself recorded with Venture prior to two albums in the early 70's with RCA (including 'Let's Try It Over'). 

In 1970 Motown producer Hal Davis contacted him in the middle of the night to demand help in finishing a song. Motown boss Berry Gordy had told Davis he liked the title but not the song, and Davis needed it finished for a recording session that morning. Hutch stayed up working on the song and presented it to Gordy at 8 am. Gordy ordered Hutch into the studio to arrange the vocals. The song was I'll Be There, and the band was the Jackson 5 with a 12-year-old Michael Jackson on lead vocal. The song topped the US pop and r&b charts, made no 4 in the UK, and became, at the time, Motown's biggest selling single. Berry Gordy signed Hutch to be a staff writer, arranger, producer, and musician shortly thereafter. Hutch also collaborated on the Jackson 5 hits "Got to Be There" and "Never Can Say Goodbye." 

Hutch then produced albums for Michael Jackson and Smokey Robinson during the early '70s, during which time Hutch penned the soundtrack to the 1973 blaxploitation flick The Mack on his own. The soundtrack is often considered to be one of the era's finest, as it spawned such funk-soul classics as the title track, "Brother's Gonna Work It Out," and "Slick." Hutch continued to issue solo releases for Motown, including such titles as Fully Exposed (1973), Foxy Brown, (1975), The Mark of the Beast (1975), Concert in Blues (1976), and Color Her Sunshine (1976), among others. After his albums for Motown he peaked with 1975's single "Love Power", which reached number 41 on the Billboard Hot 100.        

                  

                             

After briefly relocating to the Whitfield record company for a few releases, Hutch returned back to Motown in 1982, where he scored the disco hit, "In and Out", that same year and also recorded a couple of songs "The Glow" and "Inside You" for the 1985 film The Last Dragon. He issued further solo albums and worked with others, including a duet between the Four Tops and Aretha Franklin (1983's "What Have We Got to Lose"), Sammy Davis, Jr.'s "Hello Detroit" (1984), and a soundtrack album for the 1985 movie The Last Dragon. Hutch sporadically issued further solo sets in the '90s (1994's From the Heart and 1996's The Mack Is Back). He had a club hit with the song "Keep on Jammin'" as well.

He continued to work as a Motown producer into the 1990s, although he was never again to enjoy the huge success he found in the early 1970s. After moving back to Dallas in 1994, he continued to record and perform while living comfortably on royalties from old hits and new samples. He released his last album “Sexalicious” in 2002. He died from undisclosed causes in Duncanville, Texas, where he lived on September 19, 2005, aged 60. His manager, Anthony Voyce, said of Hutch: "I've never met a more generous and caring person." 

On February 8, 2007, many of the recording industry's biggest celebrities gathered to celebrate Hutch's life and art and perform some of his music at a gala tribute event at the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles. Proceeds from the event, called "From the Heart," were given to the Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts and the American Society of Young Musicians. 

At his last recording session prior to his death he recorded "Second To None" and "Treat Me" at the House Of Hayes Recording Studio in Memphis. These were never released but both of the tracks were sampled by the  German Group Boozo Bajou and released in 2003 and 2005. 

(Edited from Wikipedia, AllMusic, The Guardian & Encyclopedia.com)