Jimmy Hall, the gravel-and-soul voice who helped put Mobile, Alabama’s Wet Willie on the map in the early 1970s, takes the stage today at Nashville’s Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum for a Musician Spotlight program mixing live performance with career reflection. The 1 p.m. event unfolds in the Ford Theater, putting Hall in front of fans eager to hear firsthand how a Southern rock saxophonist and harmonica player became one of the genre’s most durable session voices.
From Mobile Bar Bands to the Billboard Charts
Hall first gained popularity in the early 1970s as the lead vocalist, saxophonist and harmonica player for Wet Willie, the Mobile-based Southern rock band, according to the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum. The band became known for songs including “Keep on Smilin’,” “Street Corner Serenade” and “Weekend,” the museum notes. Per Hall’s own website, “Keep on Smilin’” climbed into the Top 10 on the Billboard singles chart in 1974, while “Street Corner Serenade” and “Weekend” both reached the U.S. Top 40, as detailed on jimmyhall.com.
Wet Willie’s run wasn’t permanent. The band broke up in 1980 and stayed inactive until the 1990s, when Hall rejoined John Anthony and Ricky Hirsh to help bring the group back together, according to the Encyclopedia of Alabama. That legacy earned a formal honor in 2018, when the band was inducted into the Alabama Music Hall of Fame, the encyclopedia notes.
A Career Built on High-Profile Collaborations
Hall’s résumé extends well beyond his Wet Willie years. He toured extensively as vocalist in Jeff Beck’s band, serving as the guitar icon’s premier singer from 2014 to 2019 on tours across Europe and the U.S., per jimmyhall.com. That partnership dates back decades: Hall sang on Beck’s 1985 album “Flash,” which the site says earned a Grammy nomination the following year. He has also served as Hank Williams Jr.’s longtime vocalist and bandleader since 1992, and he routinely appears as a guest artist with acts including the Allman Betts Band, Blackberry Smoke and the Tedeschi Trucks Band.
In 2021, Hall picked up a Grammy Award as a guest artist on the Fisk Jubilee Singers’ “Celebrating Fisk!” in the Best Roots Gospel category, according to his website. A year later, he released his solo album “Ready Now,” produced by acclaimed blues guitarist Joe Bonamassa alongside Josh Smith and issued on Bonamassa’s KTBA Records on Sept. 16, 2022. The album went on to reach No. 1 on the Billboard Blues Albums chart, the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum reports.
What to Expect at Today’s Spotlight
During the program, Hall will play songs and talk about his career as a singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, according to the event listing on jimmyhall.com. Guitarist and vocalist Barry Waldrep will join him onstage. The Musician Spotlight Series installment is included with museum admission, and seats can be reserved through CountryMusicHallofFame.org, per the same listing, which was also detailed in an event preview from Nashville Lifestyles. For longtime fans, it’s a rare chance to hear the man behind “Keep on Smilin’” explain, in his own words, how a Mobile bar band turned into a five-decade career spanning rock, blues and country stages.
