Songwriter of ‘Friends’ theme and Earth, Wind & Fire’s ‘September’

Allee Willis, one of the music industry’s most colorful figures, whose eclectic credits as a writer and co-writer included Earth, Wind & Fire’s “September” and the “Friends” theme song, died on Tuesday in Los Angeles. She was 72.

The cause of death was “a cardiac event,” her publicist,

Ellyn Solis, said.

Ms. Willis, who grew up in Detroit, never learned to play music. But she was drawn to the Motown studios as a child, and said she learned how to become a songwriter by listening to the rhythms seeping through the building’s walls.

“A lot of times I would learn a bass line and then I’d hear the records and I’d go, Oh, that was ‘I Heard It Through the

Grapevine,’” she told The New York Times last year.

She started her career writing advertising copy and liner notes at Columbia and Epic Records, and while her first foray into making her own music — an album called “Childstar” — didn’t get far, it brought her to the attention of Bonnie Raitt, who asked Ms. Willis to collaborate. (Ms. Willis co-wrote

Ms. Raitt’s 1974 song “Got You on My Mind.”)

“September,” released in 1978, went on to become a smash; later came “Neutron Dance” for the Pointer Sisters; “What Have I Done to Deserve This?,” a collaboration between the Pet Shop Boys and Dusty Springfield; and tracks for Ray Charles, Sister Sledge, Cyndi Lauper, Nona Hendryx, Taylor

Dayne and Toni Basil.

“I, very thankfully, have a few songs that will not go away,” she told The Times of her successes, “but they’re schlepping along 900 others.”

Ms. Willis won her first Grammy in 1986 for co-writing Patti LaBelle’s “Stir It Up” for the soundtrack to “Beverly Hills Cop.” In 1995 she was nominated for an Emmy for “I’ll Be There for You,” performed by the Rembrandts, best known as the theme song for the sitcom “Friends.” (She lost to the main title theme music from “Star Trek: Voyager.”) Along with Stephen Bray and Brenda Russell, she wrote the music for the Tony-winning musical adaptation of Alice Walker’s novel “The Color Purple,” which ran on Broadway from 2005 to 2008.