Willa Ford - Fact Sheet

Profession: Musician

Willa Ford (born Amanda Lee Williford) began singing at the age of eight with the Tampa Bay Children's Choir and by the time she was 11, she joined her first professional group, the Tampa-based performing arts troupe Entertainment Revue. The group, which consisted of 20 girls ranging in age from five to 16, performed throughout the region at fairs and conventions, as well as at Walt Disney World and Busch Gardens. At 15, she briefly became part of a vocal quartet called FLA but soon left them for a solo career. Performing under the name Mandah, she was signed to MCA, who intended to market her as a clean-cut teen act. During her time at the label, she changed her stage name to Willa Ford to avoid confusion with Mandy Moore. MCA later dropped her, in part because of the negative publicity that conflicted with their intended good-girl image; Ford signed with Atlantic, who placed one of her songs on a Pokémon soundtrack and then released her debut album, Willa Was Here in 2001. The music is pure teen pop with its use of vocoders, pop/R&B grooves, and dance beats, but the lead single, "I Wanna Be Bad," and the highly sexualized cover art seem to indicate that Atlantic is embracing Ford's bad-girl image instead of trying to counter it. 

Click here for biography in its original context.

Willa Ford Photo Galleries	# of Pictures
Candid	30
Candid	12
Glamour + Articles	1
Glamour + Sexy + Articles	3