born viola mae wilkerson in the watts district of south los angeles, wills was married in her teens. she was the mother of six children before the age of 21. in 1965, she was discovered by barry white who signed her to bronco records and renamed her with the shorter stage surname of wills; from her first marriage name of lyons. she started her career at the los angeles conservatory of music and, over the following years, in addition to working with white, also performed with joe cocker, smokey robinson and many other established recording artists of the era. it was while working in london as one of cocker's backing vocalists (dubbed the "sanctified sisters") that she worked on and released her solo debut album of self-penned originals titled "soft centres", backed by cocker's session players.