News Willis Earl Beal

Willis Earl Beal’s story is charming. It’s also a story that you’re bound to be hearing plenty of times within the next 12 months. Its end-point is being signed on a four-album-deal with XL Recordings imprint Hot Charity, so thus we can deduce that he’s got something a bit special. Its beginnings handing out posters advertising himself, his qualities and his ability to be a good housemate, friend, etc. Either way, he wasn’t plugging his music through the usual means. Turns out, a good few twists and turns from these self-promoting flyers and he’s emerged as an incredibly talented songwriter.

His first record, ‘Acousmatic Sorcery’, is by the sounds of things, a scattered pulling together of all his influences and variances of style (we’re talking old-school soul, combined with a grittiness and a candidness in his songwriting). Following on from that, he’ll start work on a second album right away. So brush up on remembering the back-story, because Willis Earl Beal is an interesting fellow.