b. August 11, 1941, Montgomery, West Virginia · singer, guitarist and songwriter
Willie John Ellison was born in Montgomery, West Virginia in 1941 and raised in the coalfield community of Landgraff before moving to Rochester, New York, where he joined Soul Brothers Six as lead guitarist, singer and writer. He wrote “(She’s) Some Kind of Wonderful” quickly while travelling to a 1967 recording session, and it went on to be recorded by dozens of other artists; BMI cited it in 1995 as one of the most-performed songs in its catalogue. Ellison took Canadian citizenship in 2006 and was inducted into the West Virginia Music Hall of Fame in 2015 and the Rochester Music Hall of Fame in 2024.