Wet Willie - Keep on Smilin'

NOTE: In lieu of an 'official' video I've put together my own.

The title track of the southern rock outfit's third studio album, KEEP ON SMILIN' was also their first of three top 40 singles and became their greatest hit. The song peaked at #10 on the Billboard Hot 100 and also charted in Canada.

Wet Willie were, after the Allman Brothers Band and Lynyrd Skynyrd, the hardest-rocking of the Southern bands to come to national attention in the early '70s.

For seven years, from 1971 until 1978, they produced an enviable array of albums awash in good-time music, rollicking high-energy blues-rock, and white Southern soul, and for their trouble they racked up just one Top Ten hit ("Keep On Smilin'") and a lot of admirers.

In contrast to the Allman Brothers Band who based their music on long jams, Wet Willie were closer in spirit to Booker T. & the MG's and perhaps the Mar-Keys, of Stax/Volt fame, much more steeped in sweaty, good-time R&B than the blues-rock of the Allmans or the country-rock of the Marshall Tucker Band.

It was the group's third studio release, Keep On Smilin', that finally gave them a hit, and yielded a handful of other popular tracks. The addition of the female backing group the Williettes only opened the group's sound out further with a gospel and soul sensibility.

Dixie Rock and Wetter the Better followed in short order, but neither of those albums matched Keep On Smilin' in the songwriting department, and the band suffered a gradual decline in its album sales, despite getting a hit single out of "Dixie Rock." The band issued one final album on Capricorn in 1977, which was followed, perhaps too closely, by Wet Willie's Greatest Hits (Capricorn by that time had run into severe financial problems and was releasing anything that looked like it might sell).

Around this time, the group went through a series of internal shifts and it next emerged in 1978 with new lineup and a new contract with Epic Records. Jimmy and Jack Hall were still there, only now they were joined by three additional singers -- in addition to keyboardist Mike Duke, guitarist Marshall Smith and drummer Theophilus K. Lively contributed seriously to the vocalizing, and, to top it off, the band now had another guitar player in Larry Berwald. The result was the gorgeous Manorisms album, which showed off harmony singing like nobody's business and a pop side to the soul stylings that occasionally had the group crossing successfully close to Motown territory, only a lot hotter and sweatier than, say, the Grass Roots (who also had a kind of white Motown sound) ever got.

Sad to say, while their concert audiences were healthy and they were at no loss for gigs, Manorisms never sold, lacking the hit single to get it a foothold on AM radio. The band released one more album, Which One's Willie?, in 1979, which performed just as poorly or worse. The group finally broke up in 1980 after nearly a decade of great records and even better shows.

In the 1990s, Wet Willie re-formed around a core of keyboardist John Anthony, guitarist Ricky Hirsch, and Jimmy Hall, with other musicians -- including Smith, Duke, and Lively -- filling out their ranks. Wet Willie's recording efforts have been intermittent at best, but they've been very busy performing on-stage. In 1996, they were inducted into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame and, in March of 2001, were inducted into the Alabama Music Hall of Fame.

In 2012, Wet Willie released a new live CD Miles of Smiles on the Hittin' The Note Records label. They continue to tour with three original members including original lead singer Jimmy Hall, brother Jack Hall on bass and vocals, sister Donna Hall Foster on vocals, as well as other long time members, drummer T.K. Lively, Ric Seymour on guitar and vocals, Ricky Chancey on guitar and newest member, keyboardist Bobby Mobley.