August 25, 2023 • 54 mins
Imagine. Create. Inspire. Jimmy Hall TICKETS: https://ci.ovationtix.com/36023/production/1168247 Jimmy Hall first gained popularity as the lead vocalist, saxophonist, and harmonica player for the band Wet Willie, emerging from Mobile, Alabama. His unique brand of R&B-infused rock and roll and onstage swagger propelled the group’s signature song, “Keep on Smilin” to the Top 10 on the Billboard singles chart in 1974. After seven albums with Capricorn Records, Wet Willie moved forward to Epic Records releasing the singles “Street Corner Serenade” and “Weekend.” Both singles hit the US Top 40 and five other songs were placed in the Billboard Top 100.
Conversations With Creatives is produced for the Shelby County Arts Council by Video Visions Media Marketing and Your Podcast Now
www.shelbycountyartscouncil.com
Video Visions Media Marketing
Your Podcast Now
Conversations With Creatives is produced for the Shelby County Arts Council by Video Visions Media Marketing and Your Podcast Now
www.shelbycountyartscouncil.com
Video Visions Media Marketing
Your Podcast Now
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, y'all, welcome back to the podcast. Imagine, create,
and inspire. Three words in a very deliberate sequential order,
one that leads to the other. Imagination leads to creation.
Creation needs to inspiration and inspiration when you properly apply
Bruce's hope and hope is a commodity. Hope is cue
for the human soul. And that's what all about. Some
hope for the human soul. And I got somebody for
(00:22):
y'all today is Jimmy Hall, y'all, the king of rock
and soul.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
You were listening to Imagine, Create, Inspire the podcast. Join
hosts Bruce Andrews and conversations with creatives. Every artist has
a story and the struggle is real. To stay inspired
and in the flow, join in the conversation by leaving
us your comments and thanks for listening.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
I'll start off this way.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
Bands that we all love have guitar players, they got
bass players, they got drummers, they got horn sections, but
they only got one front man. And to be a
front man, you gotta have the genes the g E
N E s jeens to do it. And so Jimmy,
not only were you the fire in front man for
(01:06):
with they all these years that we know about, But
you seem to be comfortable being the front man with
whomever you play with.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
Is that the truth?
Speaker 4 (01:14):
Well, yeah, it's something I worked on ever since I
started singing, or realizing that I could sing when I
was you know, I was six seven years old.
Speaker 5 (01:29):
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (01:29):
I felt real comfortable with it because it was something
that came naturally, and I felt like.
Speaker 5 (01:36):
Later on especially, I realized.
Speaker 4 (01:38):
I had a gift, and that gift came from the
Good Lord above and a gene pool that started with.
Speaker 5 (01:48):
My mother's parents and went.
Speaker 4 (01:52):
Through her and my mother who played piano and sang
in the church, and her parents played and sang in church,
and then she sang in these high school musicals and
things like that. She saw that sparking me and that
talent and really tried to nurture it all along till pretty.
Speaker 5 (02:17):
Soon, I mean I was in this.
Speaker 4 (02:21):
I was in the fifth grade in Little Mert School
in Mobile, Alabama, and we put on these productions every year,
and that year we did HMS Pinafore Gilbert Suliban, and
I got.
Speaker 5 (02:36):
One of the leading parts. I was Ralph Rastraw.
Speaker 4 (02:39):
There's some pictures around if you could see me in
the British Navy looking straw hat and a little striped
shirt and everything.
Speaker 5 (02:50):
They put a little makeup on men. I hated that part, but.
Speaker 4 (02:54):
Nonetheless I really embraced that role and had a lot
of fun with it. And the leading female was Buttercup
was her name in the play, and so that was
Marshall Torbin. She was a neighbor friend of mine. So
(03:16):
we got to do a lot of rehearsals, like after
school during the week or whatever to learn the lines
and kind of work together on our verbal repartee in
this stuff. But my point I'm rambling here, but my
point is I felt so at ease. I was prepared,
but yet I got up there and a lot of
(03:36):
people my age would be pretty shaky, maybe pretty scared
of them. I just felt like.
Speaker 5 (03:46):
This is something I can do. This is something that's fun,
and I can sing these songs and people like it.
People are clapping and smiling, and I'm going, you know,
that's the first time I said I thought, I think
I like to do this. I might want to do
this as a as.
Speaker 4 (04:06):
A life's work job, if you want to call it.
Speaker 5 (04:15):
Is.
Speaker 4 (04:15):
You know, I might want to be this and and
that's where it really started and went on from there.
Speaker 5 (04:21):
I mean, there's the whole kind of trajectory of.
Speaker 4 (04:28):
Playing instruments learning learning to play violin in the sixth grade.
Because that school, for a small, little public school, they
promoted the arts, and I think the parents had a
lot to do with it. But we had a string
teacher that would come once a week. My mother said,
why don't you try that because you.
Speaker 5 (04:49):
Got a good ear.
Speaker 4 (04:50):
So I got in that once a week class and
had a good ear, so I was able to play
in tune. But just taking a year of but one
less in a week, I learned the rudiments. I learned
a few songs and a few melodies and had a
good feel for it. But from there I in seventh grade,
(05:17):
they offered band in junior high school. So seventh grade
junior high school. My brother Jack, of course two years
ahead of me, and went on to play basic will
and everything. He was playing clarinet in the junior high
school band already. So when I had an opportunity to
be in the junior high school band, my mother said,
(05:37):
you know, they're often a lot of instruments that are
that are cool or that you might want to try.
Like she said, I love the saxophone. Why don't you
try to play that? So I jumped ship on the
classical world and started playing saxophone when I was in
seventh grade and really really liked that a lot.
Speaker 5 (05:56):
But so it goes on from there, I mean, playing
my first bands, and I had a lot of fun
playing all those.
Speaker 4 (06:09):
Those songs of the sixties and seventies and all that stuff.
Speaker 5 (06:14):
But so I asked me another question. For I started
just talking.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
About, well you ramble all you going to brother? I mean,
I'm enjoying it. I'm sure everybody else is. I mean,
so let's ramble from there to maybe nineteen sixty nine,
where you know, you guys were, I mean, what led
up to the U I guess audition for the to
be on the label.
Speaker 5 (06:36):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (06:37):
Yeah, that that's a good a good piece there some
in between all that.
Speaker 5 (06:43):
Like I said, had some of my first.
Speaker 4 (06:47):
Starter bands, little garage bands, and my brother Jack did.
He had some other bands he started and had had
his own band, and his band.
Speaker 5 (06:58):
Opened up for the Animals for air Burned the.
Speaker 4 (07:00):
Animals, and they had bought these, uh I call them
beatles suits, the kind of iridescent, looking sharp. They didn't
have any callers on them, so they were going for
that kind of British look and Uh. In fact, their
drummer looked a lot like George Harrison. But that was
(07:22):
pretty exciting for them. But so I had some some bands,
uh and in round Mobile. People knew a couple of things.
One was I wasn't crazy about the name, but we
thought it was.
Speaker 5 (07:33):
Cool at the time because really, let me tell you,
it was called the Devil's Disciples and and that just
sounds like nothing but satan is. But we just called
it uh.
Speaker 4 (07:44):
On our on our business car, on our card, it
said the soul fire sounds of.
Speaker 5 (07:50):
The Devil's Disciples. We thought that was a cool, a
cool thing to have. But anyway, and then and then
uh later on in missus Olirey's Cow.
Speaker 6 (08:03):
With a.
Speaker 4 (08:05):
Bunch of great players and Beth Williams was a female
vocalist and Stanley Clark the late grade was a guitar
playing band leader, and we played got in this battle
of the bands that was a national thing, and won
(08:26):
the local competition and we won the local one. Then
we did the regional in Charlotte and we won that
and then they sent us to New York City, and
this is like nineteen sixty eight New York City, Me
and Missus Olirey's Cow. We were at the Cheetah Disco
(08:50):
Tech that's where they had this contest. But anyway, we
played our show and we were doing some really good
versions of some copy of material, a couple of ridon
but we won that whole thing, that whole national contest.
And it wasn't a band that I could see was
gonna go.
Speaker 5 (09:12):
Mm hm really successful because we really only did copye
material at that time. But really that was a good
experience and uh a good honor, you know where they
gave us the key to the city when we came
back from that ship winning that. So I'm gonna move
forward real fast too.
Speaker 4 (09:34):
My brother Jack and I were working together in the
same band.
Speaker 5 (09:40):
So in that band, the Devil's Disciples or whatever, we
we worked together and he played bass with me, and
we started working on finding the best players that that
we knew in our in our area Inmobile and so areas.
Speaker 4 (10:00):
And by that time we played with all the good
players or got to know him and Ricky Hurst was
a key member when he graduated from University of Alabama.
Speaker 5 (10:18):
He came home to Mobile and.
Speaker 4 (10:23):
We got introduced to him and we really loved his
style and he became the piece that made that lineup
with Lewis Ross on drums and my brother Jack on bass.
And we had another player that was with us part
for part of the time, and that was Marshall Smith.
(10:44):
He's a Mobile guy who played guitar and was a
really good singer too.
Speaker 5 (10:51):
But we started out with that and.
Speaker 4 (10:55):
Especially when Ricky joined, and we liked him because he
could bind notes and play the lose and he loved
BB King, so he was playing all this great blues
and bending notes. I hadn't heard a guitar player before
that could through those blues licks. And anyway, we worked hard,
rehearsed a lot, experimental with writing some of our first songs,
(11:20):
and to the point where, okay, we've been playing locally
and then we started getting some gigs like in Arkansas
or New Orleans, Johnny Smokehouse over there in Pascagoula, Mississippi.
Speaker 5 (11:37):
Everybody talks about that.
Speaker 4 (11:39):
A lot of bands played that as one of their
first out of town gigs, you know. But we got
to the point and here we are, so nineteen sixty nine,
my brother and I were going and excuse me, University
(12:02):
of South Alabama.
Speaker 5 (12:05):
It was a brand new school back then.
Speaker 4 (12:07):
It's just getting built and you know, everything getting established
there and still working on the curriculum.
Speaker 5 (12:13):
And uh, my brother Jack, he was already three years
and almost three years and he might have only.
Speaker 4 (12:24):
Had a couple a year ago or less, maybe half,
maybe one or two semesters left if he would have graduate.
Speaker 5 (12:31):
I only had two years in.
Speaker 4 (12:34):
But something told us that if we were going to
make a move and become musicians and go for it
and dedicate all our energy and.
Speaker 5 (12:53):
Everything we had into our career.
Speaker 4 (12:57):
That we had to do it now. And we had
to figure out where we wanted to do it. And
we looked around New Orleans, Miami, muscle shows, all these
music cities in Nashville even and the beacon that we
(13:18):
saw all of a sudden was Macon, Georgia.
Speaker 5 (13:23):
The Almond Brothers and Almer Brothers first album. When we heard.
Speaker 4 (13:32):
That that recording, it just really impressed us and Greg's vocals,
the guitar work, just the style of blues rock kind
of with jazz inflections, and.
Speaker 5 (13:54):
We just.
Speaker 4 (13:56):
We said, that's where we need to be that the
own brothers or on Capricorn Records.
Speaker 5 (14:04):
They're the only band on Capricorn Records, and maybe maybe
we should talk to them, maybe we should try to
make a connection.
Speaker 4 (14:22):
So this is a sign that that pointed that said
you're you're moving in the right direcsit. Ricky Hirsch, of course,
graduated from univers of Alabama, was in a fraternity. He
had a fraternity brother that he knew was in Macon, Georgia,
(14:45):
and his name was Frank Friedman and he was a
guitar player, songwriter. He was on staff at that point
with Capricorn. So Ricky said, hey, I know this guy.
We ought to call him. Let me try to get
his number. So calls Frank Freeman says, hey, Frank, I
(15:05):
got a band here and mobile. We've been working hard.
Speaker 5 (15:08):
On our our songs, our music and our style and
we're we're ready to We're ready to record. We're ready
to take that step forward into.
Speaker 4 (15:19):
Serious uh life as musicians. And he said, okay, let
me see what I can do. I'll call you back.
So he talked to who the higher ups. I guess
that would be Walden, Yeah, and Frank Finner and uh
(15:45):
Phil Walden. So he talked to them and said, you know,
I've got some friends here and I'm going to bounce
for them that they are they're worthy of at.
Speaker 5 (15:55):
Least an audition.
Speaker 4 (15:57):
So we communicated with them. They said, this is what
you need to do. We want to do a live audition.
And I thought that was pretty good, just because they'll
see what they're getting. They're not just listening to a
demo tape. We want to do a live audition. We
have a rehearsal like a studio warehouse, and just pack
(16:23):
up your stuff and come on over and this is
the date and we'll see you there and we'll make
sure you've got place to stay and everything. So we
packed our.
Speaker 5 (16:34):
Stuff and.
Speaker 4 (16:38):
We had been rehearsing and knew what we formed a
set that we wanted to play for him.
Speaker 5 (16:43):
We thought it out and mapped it out and got
to make it and.
Speaker 4 (16:50):
Met Phil and Frank Finner in the heads of the
label and set up our stuff and they said, okay,
let's hear it. So we jumped into about a forty
five to fifty minute said of our our best material,
some original things we'd worked on, some original songs. One
(17:11):
one was Red Hot Chicken. We had that already put
together and another original blues number. But at the end
they were smiling, they were happy and shaking our hands.
And Frank Finner says, I can't say the words that
(17:34):
he said exactly, but basically it's about rock and roll.
But he says, you're the American Rolling Stones. You you know,
Jimmy Hall, You look kind of like Mick Jagger, and
you got that kind of voice, is soulful and bluesy
(17:54):
in you got that feel. So they were real excited
about that direction and whatever.
Speaker 5 (18:02):
So we signed up.
Speaker 4 (18:06):
It went on to they gave us a contract to
look at and we signed on for that first first
album or you know, it was a recording contract that.
Speaker 5 (18:17):
Involved recording one album a year for as long as
they liked it and we liked it, you know, we
could keep going with it.
Speaker 4 (18:26):
And well that led to well, it led for me
to see how many years in making I wasn't making
ten years. But in the time between seventy and even
say seventy six, we had done six or seven albums
(18:47):
and one best of collection, and among that two live albums,
I mean, the.
Speaker 5 (18:55):
Third album was Stripping Wet Live, and then we did
the Wedder the Better, which was an album we record
in LA.
Speaker 4 (19:04):
But yeah, that's a great a great chapter in our book,
you know, which we haven't written yet. It's just about
that whole rise of Capricorn and the opportunity and the
honor of being on the road with the Almond Brothers
(19:26):
when Dwayne was alive and Barry was there and all
the original members and just I cherish all those memories
of being around, especially Dwayne because he was.
Speaker 5 (19:40):
Gone so soon, and and Barry also. But that really
kick started our career as far as working with the
Almonds and a lot of other great acts everybody you
can think of, from Alice Cooper or Johnny Winner or
z z Ta. Well we have this on any.
Speaker 4 (20:03):
I'm tired of talking about Ellis. I never get tired
of but it could get pretty lengthy.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
I'm not tired of it. I mean, I'm a I'm
a huge fan of live albums, and I would say
that my I mean seriously, my top two out of
top ten or roadwork from Every Winter to White Trash
and then Dripping Wet by what will You? I mean,
I know, you know I played that album so many
times that I know, even when a stack of chairs
(20:33):
fell on the record or whatever that noise was. It
was a you know. And and I can't think of
Ricky Hirsch's name without saying Ricky Lee Hirst because that's
how he introduced him on the when he did a
solo on the album. It's like it's ingrained in my
grain matter, dude.
Speaker 4 (20:49):
Yeah, it's like on on on that live album, dRIT
there's some fireworks that that go off. Yeah, and I
think they threw them on the stage that they didn't
land close to anybody. And later on we were playing
New Orleans or that area, and a guy came up
(21:10):
to us and said, hey, by the way, that was
me that through those fiorks. I said, well, don't ever
do that again.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
Now, I know. Well, tell me, man, what you know?
As you you know, you always you brought the fire
with we Willy as a front man. You always it
was like you're in the puppet like a Southern Baptist preacher,
you know. And so no matter who you tend to
play with, when you get that opportunity to slide into
that front slot, it seems comfortable for you. Is that
(21:41):
part of what makes you such a sought after collaborator?
I mean, because you're not only right music, but these
people share the stage. Of these people like Warren Haynes,
Jack Pearson, Hank Williams Junior. I mean you collaborate with
I mean, is that part of what makes you like
one of their favorite go tos?
Speaker 5 (22:01):
Yeah, I think so. I think what I've learned is.
Speaker 4 (22:06):
So I know, you know, and people that followed my
career know.
Speaker 5 (22:14):
My opportunities with.
Speaker 4 (22:18):
Some of the Almend brothers, even Dicky Betts and Chuck Levell.
Speaker 5 (22:22):
And Butch Trucks and I had that short it was
eighty two, eighty three and eighty four, a little run.
Speaker 4 (22:32):
With a group called BHLT, so that's Bets Haul the
vel and Trucks.
Speaker 5 (22:37):
And that was.
Speaker 4 (22:39):
Dicky's vision or his idea was let's put this thing together.
And at that time the Almonds weren't toured together. They
had kind of, I don't know, taking some time apart.
So we toured all over the country for a couple
(22:59):
of years there. I never did a record book. There's
a live album that's out Live at the Coffee Pot
or somewhere Virginia, Roanoke. And then with Greg I toured
with him in the Greg Oman and Friends and he
would tour in the fall when the Omens weren't touring,
(23:21):
so he had tour September, late September later on down
even in October November. But I did that ninety four, five,
six seven, right in there, And what I'm getting at
is that. And along the way in ninety two, Hank
Williams asked me or one of his band players that
(23:43):
I'm friends with, and he called me and said, well,
Hank wants a harmonica player and you play saxophone.
Speaker 5 (23:53):
That's two things you do. You sing, back up whatever.
But he needs somebody because a guy named Terry McMillan,
who had been on the road with Hank, was having
some problems with his one of his daughters. I guess
at home and he said, I can't be out on
the road right now. I need to get back home
and take care of some family business. So that's how
I got that call.
Speaker 4 (24:14):
So yeah, that led to now thirty one.
Speaker 5 (24:18):
Years with Hank Junior.
Speaker 4 (24:21):
If you would have told me that back when I started,
that I was going to stick it out or just
last this long and keep doing it. But Hank still
wants me around and I bring him. He never goes
to a sound check, because I'll do all the songs
to sing the songs and run the band, and I've
hired all the players for a long time.
Speaker 5 (24:44):
In his band.
Speaker 4 (24:44):
But it comes down to one really main factor in
a lot of this that I don't ever take my
talent for granted, and I can deliver it. I know
when I'm with another artist when to stand back and
(25:07):
and be a team player, be a harmony singer, or
make it more of a collaboration instead of listen to me,
I'm the great Jimmy Hall with a voice that never stops.
And you know I'm not a chest beater that much.
Speaker 5 (25:27):
Really right.
Speaker 4 (25:30):
There, there's operation. There were times that both Greg Oman
and Jeff Beck in the most a well polite or whatever.
It wasn't a harsh way that they presented it. It's
(25:52):
just like, oh, by the way, like like Greg said, hey,
could you kind of dial it back a little bit
for me? And you're killing me here. No, all you
got to do is tell me what you want. You know,
I can.
Speaker 5 (26:10):
I can.
Speaker 4 (26:11):
I can get out there and get those people all
excited for if you want and whatever you want me
to do.
Speaker 5 (26:15):
And the thing.
Speaker 4 (26:16):
With the Hanks, the same way, I mean, I don't.
I don't sing a lot of lead vocals on songs.
I sing harmonies and and every once in a while, oh,
get up and do one of my songs with him.
But uh, being a team player, you know, in certain
situations like that, even Jeff Becky I would tend to go.
Speaker 5 (26:38):
Ah, I get on the bike and go, come on, everybody,
let's hear from Jeff Beck guitar player in the world.
Speaker 4 (26:47):
Everybody listen to this guy and start, you know, and
tell him about a certain song we were doing.
Speaker 5 (26:52):
And Jeff Jeff sat me down and says, you don't
need to do all that.
Speaker 4 (26:58):
Really, uh appreciate it, but he said, I like to
really keep my mistique. And if you've seen Jeff beck
shows with or without a vocalis it didn't really matter.
Speaker 5 (27:14):
But he hardly says a word. Most shows.
Speaker 4 (27:18):
He might say hello, thank you very much, good to see,
good to be here, or on some of the tourists,
or most of the time at the end when we're
all up there doing our bow, he would introduce the players,
but very.
Speaker 5 (27:38):
He lets his guitar do to talk. And that's really
what it is. Ye Hey, he rest in peace, up
and rock and roll Heaven.
Speaker 1 (27:46):
I was quite a run. You ran with him from
like eighty six on or something like that.
Speaker 5 (27:51):
Yeah, Yeah, it's wow. By the way.
Speaker 4 (27:57):
You know, recently I've gotten more serious about making plans
and mapping out and moving forward on my book. And
it just comes down to my wife, my three sons.
Speaker 5 (28:12):
All. You got to do this.
Speaker 4 (28:14):
Now it's time to You've got the stories, you remember
most all of it, and I think the people will
love to read it. But with Jeff, I'll make this
part short. It was nineteen seventy two. We'd only been
(28:37):
in making for a couple of years and got a
call from I think it was from Johnny Sandlin, but.
Speaker 5 (28:48):
He said, Hey, Jimmy, are you open tonight? Listen?
Speaker 4 (28:56):
I got a call from Jeff Beck's manager and he's
in the States and he's coming to Making and bringing
his drummer, Cozy Powell with him, and they want to
check out our studio. And they're kind of in search
of a sound, in search of that soulful, bluesy sound
(29:21):
that people get a capricorner. They've been to Motown. They've
been to Motown right before that where they did the
same thing and they hung out with Stevie Wonder and
some of those folks and written Superstitionion with Stevie, and
(29:42):
so he came.
Speaker 5 (29:45):
To making.
Speaker 4 (29:47):
And I was a big fan. It was such an honor.
That was the first time I'd ever met him. Shoot
played Yardbirds songs in my bands and listened to all
his music. But so Johnny Johnny Sound said, Okay, get
your brother Jack to come because we're gonna have a
(30:10):
jam session. We're gonna just go in the studio, turn
on the machines and play whatever you want because Jeff
just wants to get a feel for it. So we
get there and Jeff's just real personable, and so it's
cozy and we just start throwing out things, just random blues.
(30:32):
Like there was one but I think it was Electric Flag.
I thought I called it Texas, but it was one
Buddy Miles sing, So it was a blue song me
And so we did that one, and I know the
one that always remember because Jeff Love he loved old
(30:56):
rock and roll, old rockabilly.
Speaker 5 (30:59):
So we played forty miles of Bad Road by Dwayne
Eddy dun du.
Speaker 4 (31:10):
No no no, you know, and we just had a
lot of fun for a while and just kind of
played the blues and whatever we wanted to and at
the end.
Speaker 5 (31:21):
Jeff was he seemed happy with it, and it was okay,
that's great.
Speaker 4 (31:27):
And that was it for a while.
Speaker 1 (31:32):
I knew that.
Speaker 4 (31:33):
It's kind of like i'll let you know, I'll let
you guys know what we decided. Well, they went to
Memphis right after that, and in Memphis, I think they
collaborated or met Steve Cropper and that seemed to be
what they were looking for.
Speaker 5 (31:53):
And this R and B and all the stack stuff
that had been recorded there and.
Speaker 4 (32:00):
In rock and roll too. But they kind of found
what they were looking for there in Memphis and did
that was it Rough.
Speaker 5 (32:06):
And Ready and whatever?
Speaker 4 (32:08):
The album with the orange on it, and with they.
Speaker 5 (32:15):
Did Going Down? Yeah, what was his name? Tense?
Speaker 4 (32:22):
Anyway, the singer of the thing going Down. They had
a good band for that. But so that was really
by beginning with Jeff Becker, his introduction to hearing me
singing and knowing what I do. And a year later
and this just kept the connection going.
Speaker 5 (32:38):
A year later, Jeff's manager called us and let us
know that Jeff wanted willing to open up his tour
in seventy three. That was with his trio Beck Bogan
as BBA with Carmine and Timmy Carmine Tim Bogan. So
(33:01):
that was a thrill and we got to know Jeff
even better.
Speaker 4 (33:03):
And played god thirty forty shows with him all over
the US, and at the end of some of those shows,
Jeff will go or even no like it. Before he
started his set, he said, Hey, Jim, hang around tonight
watch our show. I want you to I want you
(33:24):
to play some blues, sing some blues on this one.
We're going to jam the last song. So we would
do that and then later on, at the very end
of the tour, we're saying her goodbyes or see you laters,
and he said, shake my hand. I said, okay. He said,
promise me, we're going to do a record together. Promise
(33:46):
to me, me and you, we're going to do a
record together. And I said, hey, I'll give you my
word if you call me, I'm coming, okay. And I
just couldn't believe that he wanted to do that. And
so it took from seventy three to eighty four.
Speaker 5 (34:08):
That was eleven years that I got the call that
he wanted me to.
Speaker 4 (34:17):
Fly to New York and he had started an album,
a solo album with now Rogers producing. This guy who
was you know, he was a great producer, did a
lot of work around that time.
Speaker 5 (34:30):
But he of course was a member of that group
Chic and just a cool guy.
Speaker 7 (34:36):
But he he had written and co written some songs
with Jeff, and they had recorded these things and wanted
me to sing them.
Speaker 4 (34:45):
And and that's where it started. It was a song
called gosh see, this could take hours. All the stuff
that's going on, it can take hours. But I'll tell
you very short, okay, that when I flew up to
do this session with Jeff, my wife Karen was pregnant
(35:07):
with our second child. And when I was leaving, I said, well, okay,
they want me to come to New York and.
Speaker 5 (35:20):
Sing these songs.
Speaker 4 (35:21):
And I don't know when i'll be back, but i'll
probably be, you know, Saturday, Sunday. This was a Thursday,
so I flew on Thursday. Well, she said, I said,
I'm nervous about this. You know, I could miss the
birth of my son. She said, you need to go
(35:41):
this baby away. I said, okay, all right, So I
get on the plane, go and get there, and the
songs everything kind of came naturally, I gave them what
they wanted and put my.
Speaker 5 (35:58):
Soul into it and tried to.
Speaker 4 (36:00):
Just more of a blues rock kind of sound. And
we did a song called Ambitious during those sessions, and
that turned out to be one of the singles.
Speaker 5 (36:14):
That we did a video for. We did we did
a video I tell you what I want to do.
I'm gonna hold it right here.
Speaker 4 (36:27):
I gotta go outside and uh.
Speaker 5 (36:34):
Give another perspective here because cool anyway.
Speaker 4 (36:41):
Yeah, yeah, that song Ambitious became a single later on,
and we did a video that you could still see today.
Speaker 5 (36:55):
Was on It was on MTV Music Videos, so it
had so many special guests. Well, a lot of people
have seen.
Speaker 4 (37:06):
It's kind of funny. But what I was talking about
for that session was I flew home on Saturday night
and got back to Nashville. Then about three o'clock in
the morning, my wife went into labor and we went
(37:29):
to the hospital in about close to twelve noon on Sunday,
June twenty fourth, our son, Alexander Jeffrey Hall was born
named after Jeff because it was Jeff's birthday. Wow, So
that was a.
Speaker 5 (37:50):
Very coincidental, ironic situation. We just said and Alex has been.
Speaker 4 (38:00):
All through his life, he's been It's like Jeff is
my godfather. And they've met a few times on the
road and everything and kept up. But Jeff was a
great friend.
Speaker 1 (38:21):
I know you miss him, dude, the we all do.
And that's that's an epic story. The uh hey, when
did you? I mean, I'm curious about your songwriting because
I'm such a fan of it, especially ready now. I
mean yeah, like like this lyric, each and every day,
the choices that I made could have put me in
my grave, but here I stand. I mean that's righteous, dude.
(38:41):
I mean, yeah, you feeling a spiritual vibe on this
on this record?
Speaker 5 (38:46):
Yeah, Basically we're coming out of COVID.
Speaker 4 (38:58):
During COVID, I was writing songs in coming up with ideas.
Had made a commitment with with Joe Bonamas that we
were doing on his label and he was co producing.
And once the idea started flowing, they kept going and
(39:21):
really it really started with this one song that I
co wrote with Jeff Silbart. Jeff has lived in Nashville,
maybe where I first met him, but his studio and
his house is it's got a great studio in it.
He lives in Century City outside of l a kind
(39:43):
of up in the hills.
Speaker 5 (39:45):
But we'd been writing together. Had one song called A Long.
Speaker 4 (39:49):
Goodbye that's on the album that I wrote with him
a few years ago.
Speaker 5 (39:55):
But this one is just came from this idea of
so many people that I know, including my younger brother.
Because I'm one of six siblings, I'm second of six
(40:18):
and my brother Jack was the older brother. Then I
had three sisters in a row. Donald is one of those,
Indi and Susan, and then my younger brother Travis. But
my younger brother and other people in my life friends
(40:41):
have had challenges and problems with alcohol or substances. It
could even be Greg Alman who.
Speaker 4 (40:50):
Fought that for so long, and I was with him
during those years that he finally became the sober and
he had to and he got a liver transplant at
that point. But it was about these people, and in
(41:14):
a way, it was about what I wanted to hear
them say.
Speaker 5 (41:22):
Some of this.
Speaker 4 (41:23):
It could be about me. I never was an alcoholic,
although I had a grandfather that was and it kind
of ran through my gen pool of family because my
younger brother had that problem. But I just had I
(41:46):
put this in the voice of any one of those
that needed help, and I wanted him. I wanted to
hear them say. I wanted to hear my younger brother say,
this is what I've been through.
Speaker 5 (42:01):
And and I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired,
and I'm I'm ready to get better, and I'm ready
to let go and let God.
Speaker 4 (42:16):
I'm ready to to accept any kind of help from
whoever can help me.
Speaker 5 (42:24):
And so those are those are where the lyrics came from.
Speaker 4 (42:27):
And and Jeff Silva really helped me form the.
Speaker 5 (42:33):
The lyrics and and he was a great collaborator on
that one. We tried to write and I tried to write.
Speaker 4 (42:45):
More uplifting songs and coming through COVID and and surviving
that or getting through it.
Speaker 5 (42:54):
It's it's had a long tail, but moving trying to
move for from that. So there's there's songs like Rising
Up that I co wrote with Joe and uh Tom Hamorrhage,
who's a great blues drummer producer.
Speaker 4 (43:16):
But yeah, rising Up, I put one foot in front
of the other and nothing's going.
Speaker 5 (43:22):
To keep me down. I'm rising up. And then.
Speaker 4 (43:35):
Songs like Jeff and I wrote Jumping for Joy. Now,
Jumping for Joy is such a it is a joyful song.
It's it's it's just uplifting her. It makes you want
to dance, and that's what I wanted to do.
Speaker 5 (43:54):
Jeff came up with the title, and we would throw
titles around and see where what was caught our ear,
what we thought had some promise.
Speaker 4 (44:05):
So one day he just said, I got a few titles,
said let me see what you got.
Speaker 5 (44:10):
He said, how about this Jumping for Joy?
Speaker 4 (44:13):
I said, man, I want to write that. Let's let's
do that one tomorrow. So I'm going to work on
that tonight.
Speaker 5 (44:21):
So overnight I wrote most of the lyrics, at least
the beginning in the chorus, just really quickly.
Speaker 4 (44:30):
And that one that came that came fast, and it
was because everybody needs more joy.
Speaker 5 (44:40):
And I wrote it about my wife and she's been.
Speaker 4 (44:45):
A subject of several of my songs through the years.
And this one another well, just this one was fun.
She really liked that, and we did a video that was.
Speaker 5 (45:02):
It was fun.
Speaker 4 (45:03):
I'm using the word finn a lot, but it was
a thrill to do what we did and was kind
of daring because the videographer came up with this idea
and we were kind of stumbling around, thinking, wow, what
do we do for this video? And he said, let's
just go downtown Nashville on Broadway and turn on the camera.
(45:31):
We're going to put earbudgs in you you can hear
the song. We'll have it on a phone and you
carry that and I'll just walk in front of you
and back up and you just come toward me. He's
like ten feet twelve feet in front of me, and
we'll just do the song.
Speaker 5 (45:48):
We'll go through this.
Speaker 4 (45:49):
Crowd of people because it won't be too crowded, but
you know, there'll be some people there and they'll react
to how they'll react. They'll just go, hey, this is cool.
I want to clap along, and they'll go what the
hell was going on here? Who is that guy?
Speaker 5 (46:02):
And and what is he singing about?
Speaker 4 (46:05):
But everybody seems to love it just because it's it
was pretty spontaneous and there's a lot of just things
that happened that you just didn't know was going to
happen that made it magic.
Speaker 1 (46:18):
I love the video and and every track on that
on the record gets to me. I mean, most of it,
like I said, has got spiritual uplifting church vibe. And
then you got that was that Girls Got Sugar? Yeah,
I mean come ripping out of the gate with that
that track, Yeah.
Speaker 4 (46:35):
That one. Tom Hammehdage wrote a lot of that or
Tom and Joe what I I. I always contributed some
lyrics and some ideas that that relate to my to
my life and my relationship. So there's a verse in
(46:56):
that says, a little hotel room in Memphis, some soft
candle light, but she sure did treat me right. But
it was about a night in Memphis that my wife
had with me. We we had together, a nice romantic
night and and it just fit with the song really well,
(47:19):
because she's got she's a sweetheart and she's got the sugar.
Speaker 5 (47:24):
You know.
Speaker 1 (47:26):
I don't man, I don't Hey you, I'm I couldn't
be more excited about you coming down here. October twenty
eth Yes, a little Columbiana, Alabama to the Song Theater.
Do you know who you're gonna bring with you this time?
Speaker 5 (47:40):
Yeah? Well I've had so much fun.
Speaker 4 (47:45):
I had so much fun with the lineup that I
brought last time, and I've I reached out to all
the guys that played it before because I felt like,
I mean, we're gonna bring a little bit more of
this time because we've played these songs and we've we've
play other songs and kind of got a good repertoire
of all kinds of material. But I feel like everybody
(48:08):
felt the same way about that show. That there was
so much that happened right. The crowd was so responsive,
but they also it was like they wanted to have
a Q and A. They wanted to let's ask Jimmy
(48:28):
Hall what's going on. So there was a lot of
that back and forth in between songs where somebody would say, hey, Jimmy,
when you're coming over here to do this, Hey, Jimmy,
I heard you were going and I would just answer
and it was just kind of a natural part of
(48:49):
of the show. And I felt real relaxed there, and
especially because I had the right team of players with me.
So we will McFarlane on guitar, we'll have Lynn Williams
on drums, and we'll have Ted Pecky on bass, and
we'll have me and and maybe special guests. I'm talking
(49:11):
to my sister Donna because we've been doing a lot
of shows where she sings harmony, and especially on these
songs from the new album. She's She's got all the
parts down and it just adds a lot to it.
But yeah, I I like the size of that venue.
It's it's, it's it's I can see everybody, and the
(49:35):
sound was just spot on. So yeah, I've been I'm
so glad we got to do this.
Speaker 5 (49:44):
So so we played when was it February twelve? It
wasn't last year, wasn't.
Speaker 1 (49:51):
No, it was a year before. We remember we had
to cancel the show and move it because we're coming
out of COVID.
Speaker 5 (49:56):
That's right, that's right. So it's about time.
Speaker 1 (50:02):
It's about right.
Speaker 4 (50:05):
But uh, yeah, it's it's a perfect time for me
because it's cooler.
Speaker 5 (50:13):
October is just a great month to play anywhere. But
I'm gonna get real busy there after Thanksgiving with the
Almond Family re Bible, and I've done that for six
or seven years now, between Thanksgiving and week before Christmas
or so.
Speaker 4 (50:29):
But I think it's a perfect the perfect day. And
anybody that's listening to this, I tell all your friends,
come on back and uh and we'll pick up where
we left off the last show. Because I had such
a great time that one.
Speaker 1 (50:45):
I love the idea of having some time with Jimmy Hall.
Like everybody feels like it's one on one connections with
you when they come to the show at the Song Theater. Man,
it's gonna be cool.
Speaker 4 (50:55):
Yeah yeah, that feeling that that they kind of already
know me.
Speaker 5 (51:02):
And it's quite all right too.
Speaker 4 (51:04):
It's like, I'm not gonna be so pompous as not
to answer or going, hey.
Speaker 5 (51:12):
I'm trying to do a show up here. You know
that's Jimmy Hall. You could talk to him, you know.
Speaker 4 (51:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (51:22):
Yeah, Well I'm a I'm a huge fan, dude. I mean,
you have a I'll say this as a personal thank you.
I mean I love everything you've done. I mean I
can remember in the seventies, you know, probably seventy four,
by seventy three, seventy four by and dripping wet. Yeah,
you influenced everything I like about blues bassed music. And
(51:45):
the fact you're still doing it with great fervor like
a Baptist preacher means a lot to me.
Speaker 5 (51:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (51:51):
Yeah, uh, I will start preaching a little bit.
Speaker 5 (51:56):
And I always think about when I was growing up
and I was mm hm a steady.
Speaker 6 (52:02):
A member of the Kingswood Methods Church, a small Methodist
church that I attended from early on and through through
my teenage years.
Speaker 5 (52:13):
I sang in the choir, and at one point my mom,
just because it was such a small church, at.
Speaker 4 (52:20):
The adults and the and the young adults and teenagers
would be in the same choir, so they needed all
the help they can get from any member. But so
my mom would say, Jim, you're gonna be my preacher.
You're gonna be my preacher. Well, we'll see, Okay, I
don't know. So I'm preaching from the stage, uh sometimes
(52:44):
and uh. I come from a long line of churchgoers
and and believers.
Speaker 5 (52:51):
So that has to come out.
Speaker 1 (52:53):
Well, let's let's let's wrap up this way because I
mean it's kind of interesting for me since I'm a grandpa.
You know, I mean, you got you got these grand
you got one grand son? Is that what you got?
Speaker 5 (53:05):
I got?
Speaker 4 (53:06):
So my son Alex, who was the you know, middle
name Jeffrey, he's my middle son, and he and his
wife Colby live in Memphis, and he.
Speaker 5 (53:20):
His day job is he's an attorney. But all my
sons like to participate in the music and and we'll
play on.
Speaker 4 (53:28):
My shows or he plays drums. But he and his
wife Kobe, had our first grandchildren. They're identical twin.
Speaker 5 (53:35):
Girls and once named Everly and her name is Everly
James after me, and then Olivia Whittington Hall. And they
will be three years old on August twenty seven. And
their sweet there. They're blondeheaded, curly, blue eyed girls. We
(53:59):
are already singing and have their own little microphones to
get up on a little table and put on shows
and stuff. At two years old. Three years old, they
run around the house.
Speaker 4 (54:08):
Second together, I say, I get it some mormonica, so
they're getting started on that.
Speaker 5 (54:13):
But yeah, life is good.
Speaker 2 (54:18):
Thanks for listening to Imagine Creed Inspire the podcast. For
more information on the Shelby County Arts Council, please visit
www dot Shelby countyartscuoncil dot com
All right, y'all, welcome back to the podcast. Imagine, create,
and inspire. Three words in a very deliberate sequential order,
one that leads to the other. Imagination leads to creation.
Creation needs to inspiration and inspiration when you properly apply
Bruce's hope and hope is a commodity. Hope is cue
for the human soul. And that's what all about. Some
hope for the human soul. And I got somebody for
(00:22):
y'all today is Jimmy Hall, y'all, the king of rock
and soul.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
You were listening to Imagine, Create, Inspire the podcast. Join
hosts Bruce Andrews and conversations with creatives. Every artist has
a story and the struggle is real. To stay inspired
and in the flow, join in the conversation by leaving
us your comments and thanks for listening.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
I'll start off this way.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
Bands that we all love have guitar players, they got
bass players, they got drummers, they got horn sections, but
they only got one front man. And to be a
front man, you gotta have the genes the g E
N E s jeens to do it. And so Jimmy,
not only were you the fire in front man for
(01:06):
with they all these years that we know about, But
you seem to be comfortable being the front man with
whomever you play with.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
Is that the truth?
Speaker 4 (01:14):
Well, yeah, it's something I worked on ever since I
started singing, or realizing that I could sing when I
was you know, I was six seven years old.
Speaker 5 (01:29):
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (01:29):
I felt real comfortable with it because it was something
that came naturally, and I felt like.
Speaker 5 (01:36):
Later on especially, I realized.
Speaker 4 (01:38):
I had a gift, and that gift came from the
Good Lord above and a gene pool that started with.
Speaker 5 (01:48):
My mother's parents and went.
Speaker 4 (01:52):
Through her and my mother who played piano and sang
in the church, and her parents played and sang in church,
and then she sang in these high school musicals and
things like that. She saw that sparking me and that
talent and really tried to nurture it all along till pretty.
Speaker 5 (02:17):
Soon, I mean I was in this.
Speaker 4 (02:21):
I was in the fifth grade in Little Mert School
in Mobile, Alabama, and we put on these productions every year,
and that year we did HMS Pinafore Gilbert Suliban, and
I got.
Speaker 5 (02:36):
One of the leading parts. I was Ralph Rastraw.
Speaker 4 (02:39):
There's some pictures around if you could see me in
the British Navy looking straw hat and a little striped
shirt and everything.
Speaker 5 (02:50):
They put a little makeup on men. I hated that part, but.
Speaker 4 (02:54):
Nonetheless I really embraced that role and had a lot
of fun with it. And the leading female was Buttercup
was her name in the play, and so that was
Marshall Torbin. She was a neighbor friend of mine. So
(03:16):
we got to do a lot of rehearsals, like after
school during the week or whatever to learn the lines
and kind of work together on our verbal repartee in
this stuff. But my point I'm rambling here, but my
point is I felt so at ease. I was prepared,
but yet I got up there and a lot of
(03:36):
people my age would be pretty shaky, maybe pretty scared
of them. I just felt like.
Speaker 5 (03:46):
This is something I can do. This is something that's fun,
and I can sing these songs and people like it.
People are clapping and smiling, and I'm going, you know,
that's the first time I said I thought, I think
I like to do this. I might want to do
this as a as.
Speaker 4 (04:06):
A life's work job, if you want to call it.
Speaker 5 (04:15):
Is.
Speaker 4 (04:15):
You know, I might want to be this and and
that's where it really started and went on from there.
Speaker 5 (04:21):
I mean, there's the whole kind of trajectory of.
Speaker 4 (04:28):
Playing instruments learning learning to play violin in the sixth grade.
Because that school, for a small, little public school, they
promoted the arts, and I think the parents had a
lot to do with it. But we had a string
teacher that would come once a week. My mother said,
why don't you try that because you.
Speaker 5 (04:49):
Got a good ear.
Speaker 4 (04:50):
So I got in that once a week class and
had a good ear, so I was able to play
in tune. But just taking a year of but one
less in a week, I learned the rudiments. I learned
a few songs and a few melodies and had a
good feel for it. But from there I in seventh grade,
(05:17):
they offered band in junior high school. So seventh grade
junior high school. My brother Jack, of course two years
ahead of me, and went on to play basic will
and everything. He was playing clarinet in the junior high
school band already. So when I had an opportunity to
be in the junior high school band, my mother said,
(05:37):
you know, they're often a lot of instruments that are
that are cool or that you might want to try.
Like she said, I love the saxophone. Why don't you
try to play that? So I jumped ship on the
classical world and started playing saxophone when I was in
seventh grade and really really liked that a lot.
Speaker 5 (05:56):
But so it goes on from there, I mean, playing
my first bands, and I had a lot of fun
playing all those.
Speaker 4 (06:09):
Those songs of the sixties and seventies and all that stuff.
Speaker 5 (06:14):
But so I asked me another question. For I started
just talking.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
About, well you ramble all you going to brother? I mean,
I'm enjoying it. I'm sure everybody else is. I mean,
so let's ramble from there to maybe nineteen sixty nine,
where you know, you guys were, I mean, what led
up to the U I guess audition for the to
be on the label.
Speaker 5 (06:36):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (06:37):
Yeah, that that's a good a good piece there some
in between all that.
Speaker 5 (06:43):
Like I said, had some of my first.
Speaker 4 (06:47):
Starter bands, little garage bands, and my brother Jack did.
He had some other bands he started and had had
his own band, and his band.
Speaker 5 (06:58):
Opened up for the Animals for air Burned the.
Speaker 4 (07:00):
Animals, and they had bought these, uh I call them
beatles suits, the kind of iridescent, looking sharp. They didn't
have any callers on them, so they were going for
that kind of British look and Uh. In fact, their
drummer looked a lot like George Harrison. But that was
(07:22):
pretty exciting for them. But so I had some some bands,
uh and in round Mobile. People knew a couple of things.
One was I wasn't crazy about the name, but we
thought it was.
Speaker 5 (07:33):
Cool at the time because really, let me tell you,
it was called the Devil's Disciples and and that just
sounds like nothing but satan is. But we just called
it uh.
Speaker 4 (07:44):
On our on our business car, on our card, it
said the soul fire sounds of.
Speaker 5 (07:50):
The Devil's Disciples. We thought that was a cool, a
cool thing to have. But anyway, and then and then
uh later on in missus Olirey's Cow.
Speaker 6 (08:03):
With a.
Speaker 4 (08:05):
Bunch of great players and Beth Williams was a female
vocalist and Stanley Clark the late grade was a guitar
playing band leader, and we played got in this battle
of the bands that was a national thing, and won
(08:26):
the local competition and we won the local one. Then
we did the regional in Charlotte and we won that
and then they sent us to New York City, and
this is like nineteen sixty eight New York City, Me
and Missus Olirey's Cow. We were at the Cheetah Disco
(08:50):
Tech that's where they had this contest. But anyway, we
played our show and we were doing some really good
versions of some copy of material, a couple of ridon
but we won that whole thing, that whole national contest.
And it wasn't a band that I could see was
gonna go.
Speaker 5 (09:12):
Mm hm really successful because we really only did copye
material at that time. But really that was a good
experience and uh a good honor, you know where they
gave us the key to the city when we came
back from that ship winning that. So I'm gonna move
forward real fast too.
Speaker 4 (09:34):
My brother Jack and I were working together in the
same band.
Speaker 5 (09:40):
So in that band, the Devil's Disciples or whatever, we
we worked together and he played bass with me, and
we started working on finding the best players that that
we knew in our in our area Inmobile and so areas.
Speaker 4 (10:00):
And by that time we played with all the good
players or got to know him and Ricky Hurst was
a key member when he graduated from University of Alabama.
Speaker 5 (10:18):
He came home to Mobile and.
Speaker 4 (10:23):
We got introduced to him and we really loved his
style and he became the piece that made that lineup
with Lewis Ross on drums and my brother Jack on bass.
And we had another player that was with us part
for part of the time, and that was Marshall Smith.
(10:44):
He's a Mobile guy who played guitar and was a
really good singer too.
Speaker 5 (10:51):
But we started out with that and.
Speaker 4 (10:55):
Especially when Ricky joined, and we liked him because he
could bind notes and play the lose and he loved
BB King, so he was playing all this great blues
and bending notes. I hadn't heard a guitar player before
that could through those blues licks. And anyway, we worked hard,
rehearsed a lot, experimental with writing some of our first songs,
(11:20):
and to the point where, okay, we've been playing locally
and then we started getting some gigs like in Arkansas
or New Orleans, Johnny Smokehouse over there in Pascagoula, Mississippi.
Speaker 5 (11:37):
Everybody talks about that.
Speaker 4 (11:39):
A lot of bands played that as one of their
first out of town gigs, you know. But we got
to the point and here we are, so nineteen sixty nine,
my brother and I were going and excuse me, University
(12:02):
of South Alabama.
Speaker 5 (12:05):
It was a brand new school back then.
Speaker 4 (12:07):
It's just getting built and you know, everything getting established
there and still working on the curriculum.
Speaker 5 (12:13):
And uh, my brother Jack, he was already three years
and almost three years and he might have only.
Speaker 4 (12:24):
Had a couple a year ago or less, maybe half,
maybe one or two semesters left if he would have graduate.
Speaker 5 (12:31):
I only had two years in.
Speaker 4 (12:34):
But something told us that if we were going to
make a move and become musicians and go for it
and dedicate all our energy and.
Speaker 5 (12:53):
Everything we had into our career.
Speaker 4 (12:57):
That we had to do it now. And we had
to figure out where we wanted to do it. And
we looked around New Orleans, Miami, muscle shows, all these
music cities in Nashville even and the beacon that we
(13:18):
saw all of a sudden was Macon, Georgia.
Speaker 5 (13:23):
The Almond Brothers and Almer Brothers first album. When we heard.
Speaker 4 (13:32):
That that recording, it just really impressed us and Greg's vocals,
the guitar work, just the style of blues rock kind
of with jazz inflections, and.
Speaker 5 (13:54):
We just.
Speaker 4 (13:56):
We said, that's where we need to be that the
own brothers or on Capricorn Records.
Speaker 5 (14:04):
They're the only band on Capricorn Records, and maybe maybe
we should talk to them, maybe we should try to
make a connection.
Speaker 4 (14:22):
So this is a sign that that pointed that said
you're you're moving in the right direcsit. Ricky Hirsch, of course,
graduated from univers of Alabama, was in a fraternity. He
had a fraternity brother that he knew was in Macon, Georgia,
(14:45):
and his name was Frank Friedman and he was a
guitar player, songwriter. He was on staff at that point
with Capricorn. So Ricky said, hey, I know this guy.
We ought to call him. Let me try to get
his number. So calls Frank Freeman says, hey, Frank, I
(15:05):
got a band here and mobile. We've been working hard.
Speaker 5 (15:08):
On our our songs, our music and our style and
we're we're ready to We're ready to record. We're ready
to take that step forward into.
Speaker 4 (15:19):
Serious uh life as musicians. And he said, okay, let
me see what I can do. I'll call you back.
So he talked to who the higher ups. I guess
that would be Walden, Yeah, and Frank Finner and uh
(15:45):
Phil Walden. So he talked to them and said, you know,
I've got some friends here and I'm going to bounce
for them that they are they're worthy of at.
Speaker 5 (15:55):
Least an audition.
Speaker 4 (15:57):
So we communicated with them. They said, this is what
you need to do. We want to do a live audition.
And I thought that was pretty good, just because they'll
see what they're getting. They're not just listening to a
demo tape. We want to do a live audition. We
have a rehearsal like a studio warehouse, and just pack
(16:23):
up your stuff and come on over and this is
the date and we'll see you there and we'll make
sure you've got place to stay and everything. So we
packed our.
Speaker 5 (16:34):
Stuff and.
Speaker 4 (16:38):
We had been rehearsing and knew what we formed a
set that we wanted to play for him.
Speaker 5 (16:43):
We thought it out and mapped it out and got
to make it and.
Speaker 4 (16:50):
Met Phil and Frank Finner in the heads of the
label and set up our stuff and they said, okay,
let's hear it. So we jumped into about a forty
five to fifty minute said of our our best material,
some original things we'd worked on, some original songs. One
(17:11):
one was Red Hot Chicken. We had that already put
together and another original blues number. But at the end
they were smiling, they were happy and shaking our hands.
And Frank Finner says, I can't say the words that
(17:34):
he said exactly, but basically it's about rock and roll.
But he says, you're the American Rolling Stones. You you know,
Jimmy Hall, You look kind of like Mick Jagger, and
you got that kind of voice, is soulful and bluesy
(17:54):
in you got that feel. So they were real excited
about that direction and whatever.
Speaker 5 (18:02):
So we signed up.
Speaker 4 (18:06):
It went on to they gave us a contract to
look at and we signed on for that first first
album or you know, it was a recording contract that.
Speaker 5 (18:17):
Involved recording one album a year for as long as
they liked it and we liked it, you know, we
could keep going with it.
Speaker 4 (18:26):
And well that led to well, it led for me
to see how many years in making I wasn't making
ten years. But in the time between seventy and even
say seventy six, we had done six or seven albums
(18:47):
and one best of collection, and among that two live albums,
I mean, the.
Speaker 5 (18:55):
Third album was Stripping Wet Live, and then we did
the Wedder the Better, which was an album we record
in LA.
Speaker 4 (19:04):
But yeah, that's a great a great chapter in our book,
you know, which we haven't written yet. It's just about
that whole rise of Capricorn and the opportunity and the
honor of being on the road with the Almond Brothers
(19:26):
when Dwayne was alive and Barry was there and all
the original members and just I cherish all those memories
of being around, especially Dwayne because he was.
Speaker 5 (19:40):
Gone so soon, and and Barry also. But that really
kick started our career as far as working with the
Almonds and a lot of other great acts everybody you
can think of, from Alice Cooper or Johnny Winner or
z z Ta. Well we have this on any.
Speaker 4 (20:03):
I'm tired of talking about Ellis. I never get tired
of but it could get pretty lengthy.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
I'm not tired of it. I mean, I'm a I'm
a huge fan of live albums, and I would say
that my I mean seriously, my top two out of
top ten or roadwork from Every Winter to White Trash
and then Dripping Wet by what will You? I mean,
I know, you know I played that album so many
times that I know, even when a stack of chairs
(20:33):
fell on the record or whatever that noise was. It
was a you know. And and I can't think of
Ricky Hirsch's name without saying Ricky Lee Hirst because that's
how he introduced him on the when he did a
solo on the album. It's like it's ingrained in my
grain matter, dude.
Speaker 4 (20:49):
Yeah, it's like on on on that live album, dRIT
there's some fireworks that that go off. Yeah, and I
think they threw them on the stage that they didn't
land close to anybody. And later on we were playing
New Orleans or that area, and a guy came up
(21:10):
to us and said, hey, by the way, that was
me that through those fiorks. I said, well, don't ever
do that again.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
Now, I know. Well, tell me, man, what you know?
As you you know, you always you brought the fire
with we Willy as a front man. You always it
was like you're in the puppet like a Southern Baptist preacher,
you know. And so no matter who you tend to
play with, when you get that opportunity to slide into
that front slot, it seems comfortable for you. Is that
(21:41):
part of what makes you such a sought after collaborator?
I mean, because you're not only right music, but these
people share the stage. Of these people like Warren Haynes,
Jack Pearson, Hank Williams Junior. I mean you collaborate with
I mean, is that part of what makes you like
one of their favorite go tos?
Speaker 5 (22:01):
Yeah, I think so. I think what I've learned is.
Speaker 4 (22:06):
So I know, you know, and people that followed my
career know.
Speaker 5 (22:14):
My opportunities with.
Speaker 4 (22:18):
Some of the Almend brothers, even Dicky Betts and Chuck Levell.
Speaker 5 (22:22):
And Butch Trucks and I had that short it was
eighty two, eighty three and eighty four, a little run.
Speaker 4 (22:32):
With a group called BHLT, so that's Bets Haul the
vel and Trucks.
Speaker 5 (22:37):
And that was.
Speaker 4 (22:39):
Dicky's vision or his idea was let's put this thing together.
And at that time the Almonds weren't toured together. They
had kind of, I don't know, taking some time apart.
So we toured all over the country for a couple
(22:59):
of years there. I never did a record book. There's
a live album that's out Live at the Coffee Pot
or somewhere Virginia, Roanoke. And then with Greg I toured
with him in the Greg Oman and Friends and he
would tour in the fall when the Omens weren't touring,
(23:21):
so he had tour September, late September later on down
even in October November. But I did that ninety four, five,
six seven, right in there, And what I'm getting at
is that. And along the way in ninety two, Hank
Williams asked me or one of his band players that
(23:43):
I'm friends with, and he called me and said, well,
Hank wants a harmonica player and you play saxophone.
Speaker 5 (23:53):
That's two things you do. You sing, back up whatever.
But he needs somebody because a guy named Terry McMillan,
who had been on the road with Hank, was having
some problems with his one of his daughters. I guess
at home and he said, I can't be out on
the road right now. I need to get back home
and take care of some family business. So that's how
I got that call.
Speaker 4 (24:14):
So yeah, that led to now thirty one.
Speaker 5 (24:18):
Years with Hank Junior.
Speaker 4 (24:21):
If you would have told me that back when I started,
that I was going to stick it out or just
last this long and keep doing it. But Hank still
wants me around and I bring him. He never goes
to a sound check, because I'll do all the songs
to sing the songs and run the band, and I've
hired all the players for a long time.
Speaker 5 (24:44):
In his band.
Speaker 4 (24:44):
But it comes down to one really main factor in
a lot of this that I don't ever take my
talent for granted, and I can deliver it. I know
when I'm with another artist when to stand back and
(25:07):
and be a team player, be a harmony singer, or
make it more of a collaboration instead of listen to me,
I'm the great Jimmy Hall with a voice that never stops.
And you know I'm not a chest beater that much.
Speaker 5 (25:27):
Really right.
Speaker 4 (25:30):
There, there's operation. There were times that both Greg Oman
and Jeff Beck in the most a well polite or whatever.
It wasn't a harsh way that they presented it. It's
(25:52):
just like, oh, by the way, like like Greg said, hey,
could you kind of dial it back a little bit
for me? And you're killing me here. No, all you
got to do is tell me what you want. You know,
I can.
Speaker 5 (26:10):
I can.
Speaker 4 (26:11):
I can get out there and get those people all
excited for if you want and whatever you want me
to do.
Speaker 5 (26:15):
And the thing.
Speaker 4 (26:16):
With the Hanks, the same way, I mean, I don't.
I don't sing a lot of lead vocals on songs.
I sing harmonies and and every once in a while, oh,
get up and do one of my songs with him.
But uh, being a team player, you know, in certain
situations like that, even Jeff Becky I would tend to go.
Speaker 5 (26:38):
Ah, I get on the bike and go, come on, everybody,
let's hear from Jeff Beck guitar player in the world.
Speaker 4 (26:47):
Everybody listen to this guy and start, you know, and
tell him about a certain song we were doing.
Speaker 5 (26:52):
And Jeff Jeff sat me down and says, you don't
need to do all that.
Speaker 4 (26:58):
Really, uh appreciate it, but he said, I like to
really keep my mistique. And if you've seen Jeff beck
shows with or without a vocalis it didn't really matter.
Speaker 5 (27:14):
But he hardly says a word. Most shows.
Speaker 4 (27:18):
He might say hello, thank you very much, good to see,
good to be here, or on some of the tourists,
or most of the time at the end when we're
all up there doing our bow, he would introduce the players,
but very.
Speaker 5 (27:38):
He lets his guitar do to talk. And that's really
what it is. Ye Hey, he rest in peace, up
and rock and roll Heaven.
Speaker 1 (27:46):
I was quite a run. You ran with him from
like eighty six on or something like that.
Speaker 5 (27:51):
Yeah, Yeah, it's wow. By the way.
Speaker 4 (27:57):
You know, recently I've gotten more serious about making plans
and mapping out and moving forward on my book. And
it just comes down to my wife, my three sons.
Speaker 5 (28:12):
All. You got to do this.
Speaker 4 (28:14):
Now it's time to You've got the stories, you remember
most all of it, and I think the people will
love to read it. But with Jeff, I'll make this
part short. It was nineteen seventy two. We'd only been
(28:37):
in making for a couple of years and got a
call from I think it was from Johnny Sandlin, but.
Speaker 5 (28:48):
He said, Hey, Jimmy, are you open tonight? Listen?
Speaker 4 (28:56):
I got a call from Jeff Beck's manager and he's
in the States and he's coming to Making and bringing
his drummer, Cozy Powell with him, and they want to
check out our studio. And they're kind of in search
of a sound, in search of that soulful, bluesy sound
(29:21):
that people get a capricorner. They've been to Motown. They've
been to Motown right before that where they did the
same thing and they hung out with Stevie Wonder and
some of those folks and written Superstitionion with Stevie, and
(29:42):
so he came.
Speaker 5 (29:45):
To making.
Speaker 4 (29:47):
And I was a big fan. It was such an honor.
That was the first time I'd ever met him. Shoot
played Yardbirds songs in my bands and listened to all
his music. But so Johnny Johnny Sound said, Okay, get
your brother Jack to come because we're gonna have a
(30:10):
jam session. We're gonna just go in the studio, turn
on the machines and play whatever you want because Jeff
just wants to get a feel for it. So we
get there and Jeff's just real personable, and so it's
cozy and we just start throwing out things, just random blues.
(30:32):
Like there was one but I think it was Electric Flag.
I thought I called it Texas, but it was one
Buddy Miles sing, So it was a blue song me
And so we did that one, and I know the
one that always remember because Jeff Love he loved old
(30:56):
rock and roll, old rockabilly.
Speaker 5 (30:59):
So we played forty miles of Bad Road by Dwayne
Eddy dun du.
Speaker 4 (31:10):
No no no, you know, and we just had a
lot of fun for a while and just kind of
played the blues and whatever we wanted to and at
the end.
Speaker 5 (31:21):
Jeff was he seemed happy with it, and it was okay,
that's great.
Speaker 4 (31:27):
And that was it for a while.
Speaker 1 (31:32):
I knew that.
Speaker 4 (31:33):
It's kind of like i'll let you know, I'll let
you guys know what we decided. Well, they went to
Memphis right after that, and in Memphis, I think they
collaborated or met Steve Cropper and that seemed to be
what they were looking for.
Speaker 5 (31:53):
And this R and B and all the stack stuff
that had been recorded there and.
Speaker 4 (32:00):
In rock and roll too. But they kind of found
what they were looking for there in Memphis and did
that was it Rough.
Speaker 5 (32:06):
And Ready and whatever?
Speaker 4 (32:08):
The album with the orange on it, and with they.
Speaker 5 (32:15):
Did Going Down? Yeah, what was his name? Tense?
Speaker 4 (32:22):
Anyway, the singer of the thing going Down. They had
a good band for that. But so that was really
by beginning with Jeff Becker, his introduction to hearing me
singing and knowing what I do. And a year later
and this just kept the connection going.
Speaker 5 (32:38):
A year later, Jeff's manager called us and let us
know that Jeff wanted willing to open up his tour
in seventy three. That was with his trio Beck Bogan
as BBA with Carmine and Timmy Carmine Tim Bogan. So
(33:01):
that was a thrill and we got to know Jeff
even better.
Speaker 4 (33:03):
And played god thirty forty shows with him all over
the US, and at the end of some of those shows,
Jeff will go or even no like it. Before he
started his set, he said, Hey, Jim, hang around tonight
watch our show. I want you to I want you
(33:24):
to play some blues, sing some blues on this one.
We're going to jam the last song. So we would
do that and then later on, at the very end
of the tour, we're saying her goodbyes or see you laters,
and he said, shake my hand. I said, okay. He said,
promise me, we're going to do a record together. Promise
(33:46):
to me, me and you, we're going to do a
record together. And I said, hey, I'll give you my
word if you call me, I'm coming, okay. And I
just couldn't believe that he wanted to do that. And
so it took from seventy three to eighty four.
Speaker 5 (34:08):
That was eleven years that I got the call that
he wanted me to.
Speaker 4 (34:17):
Fly to New York and he had started an album,
a solo album with now Rogers producing. This guy who
was you know, he was a great producer, did a
lot of work around that time.
Speaker 5 (34:30):
But he of course was a member of that group
Chic and just a cool guy.
Speaker 7 (34:36):
But he he had written and co written some songs
with Jeff, and they had recorded these things and wanted
me to sing them.
Speaker 4 (34:45):
And and that's where it started. It was a song
called gosh see, this could take hours. All the stuff
that's going on, it can take hours. But I'll tell
you very short, okay, that when I flew up to
do this session with Jeff, my wife Karen was pregnant
(35:07):
with our second child. And when I was leaving, I said, well, okay,
they want me to come to New York and.
Speaker 5 (35:20):
Sing these songs.
Speaker 4 (35:21):
And I don't know when i'll be back, but i'll
probably be, you know, Saturday, Sunday. This was a Thursday,
so I flew on Thursday. Well, she said, I said,
I'm nervous about this. You know, I could miss the
birth of my son. She said, you need to go
(35:41):
this baby away. I said, okay, all right, So I
get on the plane, go and get there, and the
songs everything kind of came naturally, I gave them what
they wanted and put my.
Speaker 5 (35:58):
Soul into it and tried to.
Speaker 4 (36:00):
Just more of a blues rock kind of sound. And
we did a song called Ambitious during those sessions, and
that turned out to be one of the singles.
Speaker 5 (36:14):
That we did a video for. We did we did
a video I tell you what I want to do.
I'm gonna hold it right here.
Speaker 4 (36:27):
I gotta go outside and uh.
Speaker 5 (36:34):
Give another perspective here because cool anyway.
Speaker 4 (36:41):
Yeah, yeah, that song Ambitious became a single later on,
and we did a video that you could still see today.
Speaker 5 (36:55):
Was on It was on MTV Music Videos, so it
had so many special guests. Well, a lot of people
have seen.
Speaker 4 (37:06):
It's kind of funny. But what I was talking about
for that session was I flew home on Saturday night
and got back to Nashville. Then about three o'clock in
the morning, my wife went into labor and we went
(37:29):
to the hospital in about close to twelve noon on Sunday,
June twenty fourth, our son, Alexander Jeffrey Hall was born
named after Jeff because it was Jeff's birthday. Wow, So
that was a.
Speaker 5 (37:50):
Very coincidental, ironic situation. We just said and Alex has been.
Speaker 4 (38:00):
All through his life, he's been It's like Jeff is
my godfather. And they've met a few times on the
road and everything and kept up. But Jeff was a
great friend.
Speaker 1 (38:21):
I know you miss him, dude, the we all do.
And that's that's an epic story. The uh hey, when
did you? I mean, I'm curious about your songwriting because
I'm such a fan of it, especially ready now. I
mean yeah, like like this lyric, each and every day,
the choices that I made could have put me in
my grave, but here I stand. I mean that's righteous, dude.
(38:41):
I mean, yeah, you feeling a spiritual vibe on this
on this record?
Speaker 5 (38:46):
Yeah, Basically we're coming out of COVID.
Speaker 4 (38:58):
During COVID, I was writing songs in coming up with ideas.
Had made a commitment with with Joe Bonamas that we
were doing on his label and he was co producing.
And once the idea started flowing, they kept going and
(39:21):
really it really started with this one song that I
co wrote with Jeff Silbart. Jeff has lived in Nashville,
maybe where I first met him, but his studio and
his house is it's got a great studio in it.
He lives in Century City outside of l a kind
(39:43):
of up in the hills.
Speaker 5 (39:45):
But we'd been writing together. Had one song called A Long.
Speaker 4 (39:49):
Goodbye that's on the album that I wrote with him
a few years ago.
Speaker 5 (39:55):
But this one is just came from this idea of
so many people that I know, including my younger brother.
Because I'm one of six siblings, I'm second of six
(40:18):
and my brother Jack was the older brother. Then I
had three sisters in a row. Donald is one of those,
Indi and Susan, and then my younger brother Travis. But
my younger brother and other people in my life friends
(40:41):
have had challenges and problems with alcohol or substances. It
could even be Greg Alman who.
Speaker 4 (40:50):
Fought that for so long, and I was with him
during those years that he finally became the sober and
he had to and he got a liver transplant at
that point. But it was about these people, and in
(41:14):
a way, it was about what I wanted to hear
them say.
Speaker 5 (41:22):
Some of this.
Speaker 4 (41:23):
It could be about me. I never was an alcoholic,
although I had a grandfather that was and it kind
of ran through my gen pool of family because my
younger brother had that problem. But I just had I
(41:46):
put this in the voice of any one of those
that needed help, and I wanted him. I wanted to
hear them say. I wanted to hear my younger brother say,
this is what I've been through.
Speaker 5 (42:01):
And and I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired,
and I'm I'm ready to get better, and I'm ready
to let go and let God.
Speaker 4 (42:16):
I'm ready to to accept any kind of help from
whoever can help me.
Speaker 5 (42:24):
And so those are those are where the lyrics came from.
Speaker 4 (42:27):
And and Jeff Silva really helped me form the.
Speaker 5 (42:33):
The lyrics and and he was a great collaborator on
that one. We tried to write and I tried to write.
Speaker 4 (42:45):
More uplifting songs and coming through COVID and and surviving
that or getting through it.
Speaker 5 (42:54):
It's it's had a long tail, but moving trying to
move for from that. So there's there's songs like Rising
Up that I co wrote with Joe and uh Tom Hamorrhage,
who's a great blues drummer producer.
Speaker 4 (43:16):
But yeah, rising Up, I put one foot in front
of the other and nothing's going.
Speaker 5 (43:22):
To keep me down. I'm rising up. And then.
Speaker 4 (43:35):
Songs like Jeff and I wrote Jumping for Joy. Now,
Jumping for Joy is such a it is a joyful song.
It's it's it's just uplifting her. It makes you want
to dance, and that's what I wanted to do.
Speaker 5 (43:54):
Jeff came up with the title, and we would throw
titles around and see where what was caught our ear,
what we thought had some promise.
Speaker 4 (44:05):
So one day he just said, I got a few titles,
said let me see what you got.
Speaker 5 (44:10):
He said, how about this Jumping for Joy?
Speaker 4 (44:13):
I said, man, I want to write that. Let's let's
do that one tomorrow. So I'm going to work on
that tonight.
Speaker 5 (44:21):
So overnight I wrote most of the lyrics, at least
the beginning in the chorus, just really quickly.
Speaker 4 (44:30):
And that one that came that came fast, and it
was because everybody needs more joy.
Speaker 5 (44:40):
And I wrote it about my wife and she's been.
Speaker 4 (44:45):
A subject of several of my songs through the years.
And this one another well, just this one was fun.
She really liked that, and we did a video that was.
Speaker 5 (45:02):
It was fun.
Speaker 4 (45:03):
I'm using the word finn a lot, but it was
a thrill to do what we did and was kind
of daring because the videographer came up with this idea
and we were kind of stumbling around, thinking, wow, what
do we do for this video? And he said, let's
just go downtown Nashville on Broadway and turn on the camera.
(45:31):
We're going to put earbudgs in you you can hear
the song. We'll have it on a phone and you
carry that and I'll just walk in front of you
and back up and you just come toward me. He's
like ten feet twelve feet in front of me, and
we'll just do the song.
Speaker 5 (45:48):
We'll go through this.
Speaker 4 (45:49):
Crowd of people because it won't be too crowded, but
you know, there'll be some people there and they'll react
to how they'll react. They'll just go, hey, this is cool.
I want to clap along, and they'll go what the
hell was going on here? Who is that guy?
Speaker 5 (46:02):
And and what is he singing about?
Speaker 4 (46:05):
But everybody seems to love it just because it's it
was pretty spontaneous and there's a lot of just things
that happened that you just didn't know was going to
happen that made it magic.
Speaker 1 (46:18):
I love the video and and every track on that
on the record gets to me. I mean, most of it,
like I said, has got spiritual uplifting church vibe. And
then you got that was that Girls Got Sugar? Yeah,
I mean come ripping out of the gate with that
that track, Yeah.
Speaker 4 (46:35):
That one. Tom Hammehdage wrote a lot of that or
Tom and Joe what I I. I always contributed some
lyrics and some ideas that that relate to my to
my life and my relationship. So there's a verse in
(46:56):
that says, a little hotel room in Memphis, some soft
candle light, but she sure did treat me right. But
it was about a night in Memphis that my wife
had with me. We we had together, a nice romantic
night and and it just fit with the song really well,
(47:19):
because she's got she's a sweetheart and she's got the sugar.
Speaker 5 (47:24):
You know.
Speaker 1 (47:26):
I don't man, I don't Hey you, I'm I couldn't
be more excited about you coming down here. October twenty
eth Yes, a little Columbiana, Alabama to the Song Theater.
Do you know who you're gonna bring with you this time?
Speaker 5 (47:40):
Yeah? Well I've had so much fun.
Speaker 4 (47:45):
I had so much fun with the lineup that I
brought last time, and I've I reached out to all
the guys that played it before because I felt like,
I mean, we're gonna bring a little bit more of
this time because we've played these songs and we've we've
play other songs and kind of got a good repertoire
of all kinds of material. But I feel like everybody
(48:08):
felt the same way about that show. That there was
so much that happened right. The crowd was so responsive,
but they also it was like they wanted to have
a Q and A. They wanted to let's ask Jimmy
(48:28):
Hall what's going on. So there was a lot of
that back and forth in between songs where somebody would say, hey, Jimmy,
when you're coming over here to do this, Hey, Jimmy,
I heard you were going and I would just answer
and it was just kind of a natural part of
(48:49):
of the show. And I felt real relaxed there, and
especially because I had the right team of players with me.
So we will McFarlane on guitar, we'll have Lynn Williams
on drums, and we'll have Ted Pecky on bass, and
we'll have me and and maybe special guests. I'm talking
(49:11):
to my sister Donna because we've been doing a lot
of shows where she sings harmony, and especially on these
songs from the new album. She's She's got all the
parts down and it just adds a lot to it.
But yeah, I I like the size of that venue.
It's it's, it's it's I can see everybody, and the
(49:35):
sound was just spot on. So yeah, I've been I'm
so glad we got to do this.
Speaker 5 (49:44):
So so we played when was it February twelve? It
wasn't last year, wasn't.
Speaker 1 (49:51):
No, it was a year before. We remember we had
to cancel the show and move it because we're coming
out of COVID.
Speaker 5 (49:56):
That's right, that's right. So it's about time.
Speaker 1 (50:02):
It's about right.
Speaker 4 (50:05):
But uh, yeah, it's it's a perfect time for me
because it's cooler.
Speaker 5 (50:13):
October is just a great month to play anywhere. But
I'm gonna get real busy there after Thanksgiving with the
Almond Family re Bible, and I've done that for six
or seven years now, between Thanksgiving and week before Christmas
or so.
Speaker 4 (50:29):
But I think it's a perfect the perfect day. And
anybody that's listening to this, I tell all your friends,
come on back and uh and we'll pick up where
we left off the last show. Because I had such
a great time that one.
Speaker 1 (50:45):
I love the idea of having some time with Jimmy Hall.
Like everybody feels like it's one on one connections with
you when they come to the show at the Song Theater. Man,
it's gonna be cool.
Speaker 4 (50:55):
Yeah yeah, that feeling that that they kind of already
know me.
Speaker 5 (51:02):
And it's quite all right too.
Speaker 4 (51:04):
It's like, I'm not gonna be so pompous as not
to answer or going, hey.
Speaker 5 (51:12):
I'm trying to do a show up here. You know
that's Jimmy Hall. You could talk to him, you know.
Speaker 4 (51:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (51:22):
Yeah, Well I'm a I'm a huge fan, dude. I mean,
you have a I'll say this as a personal thank you.
I mean I love everything you've done. I mean I
can remember in the seventies, you know, probably seventy four,
by seventy three, seventy four by and dripping wet. Yeah,
you influenced everything I like about blues bassed music. And
(51:45):
the fact you're still doing it with great fervor like
a Baptist preacher means a lot to me.
Speaker 5 (51:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (51:51):
Yeah, uh, I will start preaching a little bit.
Speaker 5 (51:56):
And I always think about when I was growing up
and I was mm hm a steady.
Speaker 6 (52:02):
A member of the Kingswood Methods Church, a small Methodist
church that I attended from early on and through through
my teenage years.
Speaker 5 (52:13):
I sang in the choir, and at one point my mom,
just because it was such a small church, at.
Speaker 4 (52:20):
The adults and the and the young adults and teenagers
would be in the same choir, so they needed all
the help they can get from any member. But so
my mom would say, Jim, you're gonna be my preacher.
You're gonna be my preacher. Well, we'll see, Okay, I
don't know. So I'm preaching from the stage, uh sometimes
(52:44):
and uh. I come from a long line of churchgoers
and and believers.
Speaker 5 (52:51):
So that has to come out.
Speaker 1 (52:53):
Well, let's let's let's wrap up this way because I
mean it's kind of interesting for me since I'm a grandpa.
You know, I mean, you got you got these grand
you got one grand son? Is that what you got?
Speaker 5 (53:05):
I got?
Speaker 4 (53:06):
So my son Alex, who was the you know, middle
name Jeffrey, he's my middle son, and he and his
wife Colby live in Memphis, and he.
Speaker 5 (53:20):
His day job is he's an attorney. But all my
sons like to participate in the music and and we'll
play on.
Speaker 4 (53:28):
My shows or he plays drums. But he and his
wife Kobe, had our first grandchildren. They're identical twin.
Speaker 5 (53:35):
Girls and once named Everly and her name is Everly
James after me, and then Olivia Whittington Hall. And they
will be three years old on August twenty seven. And
their sweet there. They're blondeheaded, curly, blue eyed girls. We
(53:59):
are already singing and have their own little microphones to
get up on a little table and put on shows
and stuff. At two years old. Three years old, they
run around the house.
Speaker 4 (54:08):
Second together, I say, I get it some mormonica, so
they're getting started on that.
Speaker 5 (54:13):
But yeah, life is good.
Speaker 2 (54:18):
Thanks for listening to Imagine Creed Inspire the podcast. For
more information on the Shelby County Arts Council, please visit
www dot Shelby countyartscuoncil dot com
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark
My Favorite Murder is a true crime comedy podcast hosted by Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark. Each week, Karen and Georgia share compelling true crimes and hometown stories from friends and listeners. Since MFM launched in January of 2016, Karen and Georgia have shared their lifelong interest in true crime and have covered stories of infamous serial killers like the Night Stalker, mysterious cold cases, captivating cults, incredible survivor stories and important events from history like the Tulsa race massacre of 1921. My Favorite Murder is part of the Exactly Right podcast network that provides a platform for bold, creative voices to bring to life provocative, entertaining and relatable stories for audiences everywhere. The Exactly Right roster of podcasts covers a variety of topics including historic true crime, comedic interviews and news, science, pop culture and more. Podcasts on the network include Buried Bones with Kate Winkler Dawson and Paul Holes, That's Messed Up: An SVU Podcast, This Podcast Will Kill You, Bananas and more.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com