There are 5 results

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  Hear Willis Earl Beal's Newly Imagined 'Cosmic Queries'

  October 3, 2012 – Add directing to that ever-growing list of vocations into which Chicago new bluesman Willis Earl Beal channels his myriad creative energies. …
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• Willis Earl Beal, 'Acousmatic Sorcery' (XL Recordings)

  April 17, 2012 – The Willis Earl Beal myth — a former soldier, briefly homeless, who now lives on the South Side of Chicago with his grandmother and staples solicitous, hand-illustrated fliers ("Greetings Ladies, my name is Willis Earl Beal") to telephone poles around town — feels like it was dreamed up by some particularly wily P.R. firm. …
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  No Trivia's Friday Five

  April 6, 2012 – For the second week in a row, I am going to use this space to mourn the death of a weirdo cult figure only tangentially related to hip-hop. This time, it's director African-American filmmaker Jamaa Fanaka, best known for the 1979 prison fight flick Penitentiary. Dialogue from the film is sampled on plenty of hip-hop songs and it's the origin of cult rapper Lil 1/2 Dead's name. …
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  Willis Earl Beal: No-Fi Outsider Brings Ramshackle Blues Into Your Earholes

  April 4, 2012 – Who: Willis Earl Beal was discovered by Found magazine after he posted flyers offering to play a song for anyone who called his cellphone. The South Chicago crooner/outsider artist started singing four years ago to fend off boredom during a homeless stint and realized he might be on to something when passersby started dropping him dollars for each performance. …
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  SPIN's 5 Best New Artists for February '12

  February 2, 2012 – WILLIS EARL BEAL Who: An idiosyncratic, Chicago-based antifolk belter whose cassette-recorded debut, Acousmatic Sorcery, drops on April 3 via XL Recordings' new Hot Charity imprint. He's set to open some U.S. …
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