Wet Willie among inductees to Alabama Music Hall of Fame

Published 10:50 am Thursday, February 25, 2016

“We were like a bunch of punk kids in our 20s,” said Cedrick Sutherland, Wet Willie’s tour manager during the 1970s, when the band was at its commercial peak. “We didn’t know anything. We did not know we would be stars and have hits.”

Wet Willie is among five Alabama music achievers who will be inducted into the Alabama Music Hall of Fame during its 2016 honors and awards banquet Friday at the Marriott Shoals Conference Center in Florence. Other inductees are the Muscle Shoals Horns, keyboardist Chuck Leavell, Grateful Dead vocalist Donna Jean Godchaux-MacKay and producer/engineer Johnny Sandlin.

Wet Willie had plenty of hits, especially in the South, where they impressed audiences with their high-energy, R&B-influenced shows. One of the most memorable radio hits of the 1970s was their “Keep On Smilin’,” written by singer Jimmy Hall, guitarist Ricky Hirsch and the other band members in 1974.

Hirsch, who now lives in California, said the band got a sense of its success one morning in 1974 while driving into New York City.

“It was one of the times we were traipsing up to New York on the New Jersey Turnpike,” he said. “‘Hands Across the Water’ was playing in WABC as the sun was coming up, and soon after, ‘Keep On Smilin” came on. I was like, ‘really?’ Hearing that on the radio at the crack of dawn was something.”

In its earliest incarnation, the band was known as Fox, forming in 1969 in Mobile. Its first break came when it opened for Vanilla Fudge at an Arkansas gig.

“They had seen us play at a dive in Fayetteville, Arkansas,” Hirsch said.

Sutherland said the band changed its name, and quickly developed a devoted following from its club gigs, first along the Gulf Coast and later as an opening act for better-known bands.

“We toured with Grand Funk, Bachman-Turner Overdrive,” he said. “The first time we went to New York was about 1973. The Allman Brothers Band had sold out Madison Square Garden, and we were the opening act. We were blown away because people in New York knew Wet Willie. We thought of ourselves as little old boys from Mobile. That’s when we realized the power of radio. It was a great experience.”

In another show as the opening act in New Orleans, Wet Willie stole the show from hard rocking English band Humble Pie.

“On that tour we played in a 15,000-seat auditorium in New Orleans,” Sutherland said. “We did an encore, and the crowd would not let them leave. They did four encores, and they were exhausted. The crowd wanted a fifth encore, and Jimmy said they had no more songs, so I told him to do an old blues song or something.

“Humble Pie heard what was going on, and they would not come out of their dressing room for two hours,” he said. “When they finally came out, half the audience was gone.”

Hirsch said the band traveled constantly after signing with Capricorn Records in Macon, Georgia, in 1970. The record that gained the most attention early on was the live album “Dripping Wet.”

“I’ve talked to so many people who say that record was their introduction to Wet Willie,” Hirsch said.

Hirsch left the band in early 1977 after accepting an offer from Gregg Allman to join his band, which at the time included his then-wife, Cher.

“I would not have moved to L.A. without a solid gig,” he said.

Hirsch now owns two recording studios in the Los Angeles area, and continues to record and perform. His music has been used by NBC and ABC sports, and by ESPN. He performs regularly with Billy Vera and the Beaters.

Wet Willie still performs occasionally with some of the original members. Jack Hall and Donna Hall-Foster, Jimmy’s siblings, are part of the band. Jimmy Hall has worked recently as vocalist in Jeff Beck’s band.

“Wet Willie is a whole family thing,” said Dick Cooper, a Muscle Shoals music historian. “I met them on the road when I was managing LeBlanc and Carr. They are great people, some of the best people I have ever been associated with in the music business.”