Southern Soul & Six Strings: Willie Williams

On this episode of The Hook with Johni & Jess, we sit down with guitarist and songwriter Willie Williams, whose sound blends country, blues, and Southern jam rock into something both rooted and fresh.

We talk about his leap from corporate America to pursuing music full-time, the stories behind his debut album Trouble Follows Me, and the incredible musicians who helped bring the record to life — including Lee Roy Parnell, Steve Bassett, Bob Britt, Steve Hinson, Lynn Williams, Kevin McKendree, and Stewart Myers.

Willie also performs two live songs during the episode, including one that is premiering for the first time on The Hook.

Along the way we dive into songwriting, Nashville sessions, life on the road, and the influences that shaped his sound — plus a surprise Wolfman Jack connection that sends us down a wild radio rabbit hole.

If you love Southern rock, great guitar playing, and real music stories, this one’s for you.

To learn more about Willie and find out about future shows, go to:

Website: www.williewilliamsmusic.com 

FB: facebook.com/WillieWilliamsMusic

IG: www.instagram.com/willie_williams_music

Apple Music: music.apple.com/us/artist/willie-williams/2507299

Spotify: open.spotify.com/artist/1nE9ShJ83rM2Fx6Pt0wsSR

And a special thanks to Tod Weston Smith for sharing this incredible clip of your legendary Dad, 🎙️ Wolfman Jack. Learn more about Wolfman Jack Entertainment at: www.wjent.com

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Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:05

Welcome to The Hook, where music and art come together with the people that created it. I'm Johnny. I'm Jess. You're on the hook.

SPEAKER_05 0:28

You're on the hook. And we're sitting down with guitarist, songwriter, and performer Willie Williams. Willie blends country, blues, and southern jam rock into a sound that feels both rooted and fresh. His vocals carry a Carolina twang while echoes of Memphis soul, J.J. Cale, and the Allman Brothers. They weave through all his arrangements. A powerful live performer and thoughtful songwriter, Willie's guitar playing carries the emotion of blues, the sophistication of jazz, and the grit of rock and roll. He is toured with Great Southern, the band led by the legendary Dickie Betts, continuing the musical tradition of the Allman Brothers. After spending two decades in corporate America, Willie made the leap to pursue music full time, bringing years of life experience into songs that are honest, grounded, and deeply human. He's also shared the stage with artists like Leroy Parnell, who described Willie as a force to be reckoned with. Willie Williams, you're on the hook.

SPEAKER_06 1:33

Willie, you spent about 20 years in the corporate world with the kind of classic day job, but at the same time you were playing guitar, performing, and now you're pursuing a solo career, which is a huge leap. A lot of people dream about that, but never take it. What finally made you say, It's all right by me to do this full time?

SPEAKER_01 1:54

Yeah, as it's it'll be four years next month that I've been full-time music. When you know, you know. You know, and I had done the corporate thing for 20 years. And it and and just to be more specific, I was in the insurance world. I was in the property casualty insurance world, I was an underwriter, which is a which is a tough place to be for a creative person. Creative souls really have no place in spreadsheets and word docs and hundreds of emails a day. And and just it's just it was I felt it was very stifling to my personal creativity. But I did it for a long time because I loved my family and I felt you know responsible to raise them and provide for them. And I didn't graduate college, so you know, I did it's not like I had an engineering degree to fall back on or, you know, something like that. And insurance is a is a field where you can get into it without any education, really. You can sort of dive in from the ground level and work your way up, bootstraps, all that kind of stuff. And that's what I did. And I, you know, I got to where I was, you know, had a had a decent career, decent income, and I was proud that I could support my family. But after 20 years of that, I had had enough. And and I said, if I don't do something related to my music, I mean, maybe it was a midlife crisis. I don't know. Right about the time I turned 40, I thought, if I don't do something with my music, one day I'm gonna be 75, 80 years old, I'm gonna look back and I'm gonna say, why didn't I do this? I'm gonna have major regrets. And I didn't want to be that person, that bitter old man at 70, 75 years old, and look back and say, why didn't I try this?

SPEAKER_02 3:45

Main He got a paper bag and a cardboard sign. He's asking for your change. He's missing a leg on his left side, said he lost it in Vietnam. Got American flag from the VA, but he got the shaft from Uncle Sam, and it's a goddamn shame. The way we do our fellow man, it's a goddamn shame, and it's easier to stick your head down in the sand. The world's going to hell, you might just as well hang your head and cry. It's a goddamn shame. There's a teenage girl on a greyhound. She's too scared to cry. But that nice young man on the internet seemed like he would never tell a lie. So they met up at the hotel. First drink she'd ever had. And she can't remember what happened next. And now she misses her mama bad. And it's a goddamn shame. The way we do, I fell a man. And it's a goddamn shame. And it's easier to stick your head down in the sand. The world's going to hell, you might just as well hang your head and cry. It's a goddamn shame. Yeah, sure is a brown man hammering on a rooftop, sweating out all he's got. Making about fifty-five dollars a day, and Lord knows that ain't a lot. He keeps his head on a swivel for the ICE. He's never felt so alone. But his wife's real sick, and they need that money that he's been sending home. And it's a goddamn shame. The way we do our fellow man. And it's a goddamn shame. And it's easier to stick your head down in the sand. The world's going to hell, you might just as well. Hang your head and cry. It's a goddamn shame. The world's going to hell, you might just as well. Hang your head and cry. It's a goddamn shame.

SPEAKER_05 7:22

So where were you when you wrote that song?

SPEAKER_01 7:23

I was at the corner of Belvedere and Maine downtown. And I uh the first verse is absolutely a true story. I was uh I had just had lunch with a dear friend of mine, my buddy Eric Heiberg, who was the original keyboard player in the Robin Thompson band, and uh was having lunch with Eric down there. He lives down that way, down toward Rockets, and I was coming home, and for whatever reason I decided to just drive through the fan. I was at the corner of Belvedere in Maine, and I looked, there was this homeless gentleman on the on the corner, and he was wearing a Vietnam jacket, and sure enough, he was missing a leg, and he had his entire service detail written out on a cardboard, piece of cardboard, like where he had been dropped in Vietnam and what years he had served, like what Marine Corps detachment he had been with, and all this, and it was insane. I looked to my left, and there's you know all this VCU money, and to my right, here's the fucking Commonwealth Club, you know, all these rich people, and I'm like, there's all this money, and then this guy is sitting here in this just absolutely shameful state. Like, this is insane. So I I rolled down my window and I can't remember how much money I had in my pocket, but it was all my change from lunch. It was like 20 something bucks. I just gave him everything that I had. I was like, God bless you, man. I and I I think I even said like I'm sorry, and I was so pissed off. I I wrote that's another one that just fell out of the air, fell out of the ether. And I think by the time I got home, I think I'd written the whole song. I was very, very fortunate that I had a wife who was extremely supportive, loving, understanding, kind, willing to take one for the team and you know, go back to work because she had been a stay-at-home mom for 10 years. And I think part of it was just that I was just so miserable I was impossible to live with.

SPEAKER_06 9:12

Right. Right. And it was sucking your soul. It was, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:16

And she'll she'll probably say that too. I mean, she would she would she would, if she were here, she would admit that I'm a much, much happier person now. Um, you know, I was just in I was in a dark place. When you're when you're just sort just constant, it's just the constant stress of the corporate thing. You you did the corporate thing, right, Jess? I mean, so you know where I'm coming from with that. And like the constant stress of that, plus it's just a field that just bores you to death and stifles you. And so, thanks to my wife who was willing to go back to her job at the state so that we could have health insurance for our kids. I could I knew I could do music and still make decent money. You know, I had crunched the numbers. Okay, if I were if I do four gigs a week, five gigs a week, crunching numbers is what I did in my day job. I knew how to do that. Talk about like nerd geek stuff. Like I wrote out a business plan. I did I crunched, I made a spreadsheet. Okay, this is how many gigs a year I have to play, you know, at SportsPage or or at JJ's or whatever to make this work. And God bless her, she she went for it. Here we are. I think that first year I did like 180 gigs. Playing uh fewer gigs these days just because you know, those some of those first gigs, I would take them, you know. There was a couple I did for for no money. Just let me put my tip jar out. You know, I mean, just to get in the door. Hey, look, let me let me prove you that I can play and that I can sing, that I can maybe bring some people in and sell some beer for you guys. Whatever. Let me put my tip jar out. I'll do the first one for free. And it got to where, you know, you you build it, you build it, you build it, and it's first nobody comes to see you. Maybe the second time you get two people, maybe the next time you get four people. Now I'm really, really blessed where I can play like a local venue like Hardywood and maybe get 50-60 people out on a Friday night. I don't have to play as many gigs as I used to because, you know, I'm making a little more money on each gig now. So that's that's nice. I'm not having to like, you know, just full on grind it like I was five years ago when I was really starting to build this, get this thing started. Yeah, that's kind of I mean, that's sort of the nickel tour of how it all started.

SPEAKER_06 11:09

When you were doing insurance full on, did you have the hair or did that come later?

SPEAKER_01 11:16

I grew the hair out when I was 14 and had it all through high school, all through like my early 20s. Well, 23, something like that. When I went to work for my first insurance job is when I cut it.

SPEAKER_05 11:29

That should have told you right there. Yeah. You weren't heading in the right direction.

SPEAKER_01 11:32

I did I already knew. I already knew. It's just, you know. I didn't do for your family. I knew what you gotta do, yeah. And it's funny because I was just talking to my buddy Chris about a few days ago, and and and he was like, Man, I I'm so happy for you and where you're at in your life right now. He's like, I remember hanging out with you, you know, 10, 15 years ago and seeing you like, you know, in suits with short hair and like, you know, starched collar ties. He's and he's like, I don't know how you did it. That wasn't you. That's that's not my buddy Willie that I knew. He's like, that was some guy who was really taking one for the team. Um I don't take a single day for granted right now. I'm extremely blessed and grateful and thankful for my wife, my family, like everything that the stars have lined up to allow me to do this. I I wake up every morning now instead of like moaning and groaning, going, I gotta I gotta I gotta go to work, I gotta, I gotta, you know, clock in. And what now I wake up thinking, what do I get to do today? Yeah, I gotta work hard. Yeah, I spent all day doing all kinds of promo stuff. I've you know worked seven hours before I got here with you guys, but it was all stuff that I wanted to do. As you know, when you're doing stuff that you want to do, time just flies. It flies. For me, that was like that's an aha moment. When because when the time is flying, when you're working hard and the time is flying, that's probably a pretty good sign that you're doing what you're supposed to be doing. So I was lucky to get out and play, you know, once every two or three months, but it was enough. I'll use like the stove analogy. It's enough to keep the pilot light lit. So like that that spark, I never lost that spark. And all throughout that period, you know, I was I would still practice guitar a lot. I had a YouTube channel in the early in like maybe 2010-ish, where I was doing like online lessons, you know, on YouTube. And it was it was just a way, it was a way for me to like stay musical and stay sort of engaged, even if I couldn't get out and gig in front of people. It was like something to do. And I would find like making these videos or practicing guitar, like you said, Jess, time just clicks by. I mean, I'd be working, I'd be editing something on Final Cut, and I was thinking it was five minutes and it would, and it was like four hours. You know, like where did that time go? Oh, it flew by because I was doing something that I love to do.

SPEAKER_06 13:44

God, that's such actually, it's really that's not come up at all. And it is the best advice for just humans.

SPEAKER_01 13:51

Well, and here's the irony though. Like, like where I was miserable, right? Crunching numbers. I've got a buddy down in Florida who's still a dear friend of mine from the insurance, my insurance days. That's his happy place. Like he loves, he geeks out on like analytics and crunching numbers. And that's his thing. Like, nothing makes that dude happier than like creating a pivot table in Excel. And that is like fucking water torture for me, right? Like that, I can I would rather be waterboarded than to have to try to make a pivot table in Excel. You know, but like for him, that's where he gets energized, and that's when he's doing that and he's you know trying to do all this predictive analytics shit. Time flies by for him, like it does for me when I'm playing guitar. We're all wired differently, right? It could be maybe your thing is cooking, maybe your thing is golf, maybe his thing is microbiology. You don't know. You don't know until you get in the thick of it. Sorry, I'm getting animated on the topic.

SPEAKER_03 14:46

I love it. No, I love talking about it.

SPEAKER_01 14:49

I'm passionate about it.

SPEAKER_02 14:50

I mean, I get I get passionate about this sort of thing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 14:54

Because you are basically walking around just like a skeleton going through the motions robotically if you don't find it. And I think the majority of people don't.

SPEAKER_01 15:03

I think you're right. That's tragic.

SPEAKER_06 15:05

It is tragic.

SPEAKER_01 15:45

You know, it it's it's tragic. There are so many people just going through life, just sort of phoning it in every day.

SPEAKER_06 15:52

That would be a great song.

SPEAKER_01 15:53

Yeah. I've touched on it in certain songs that Steve Bassett and I wrote a song called Living the Dream.

SPEAKER_06 15:58

Not exactly it's more on the positive slant.

SPEAKER_01 16:01

Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But it definitely touches on that. Find your find your heart.

SPEAKER_05 16:06

Really excited to talk about your album called Trouble Follows Me. The title track alone, I believe it was written by David Maori in Philadelphia.

SPEAKER_01 16:15

He was a wonderful songwriter.

SPEAKER_05 16:16

Evidently it it hits you because you named your whole album after that song.

SPEAKER_01 16:21

I will say one of the things that I had done during my, let's call it the the missing years, the dark period when I was doing the day job grind, is I've got a dear friend who now lives in in Philly. He was actually living in in Boston and California at the time, named Dan Gage, who plays the harmonica, and he's one of the greatest living blues harmonica players on planet Earth. He's a dear, dear friend. Matter of fact, he's gonna be sitting in with Sky Dog this Saturday at the Broadbury. Dan uh had been involved in this thing called the Shenandoah River Songfest, which took place every May up in Luray, which is no longer a thing. It was put on by this wonderful cat named Pops Walker, now left to this mortal coil and gone on into the ether. But Pops was a wonderful man and uh really, really interesting guy. And he put on this festival every year. I went, I think, three or maybe four years, and it was something I look forward to every May. And Pops was really, really good at tracking down singer-songwriters, eclectic musicians, folks that were off the beaten path a little bit. And that's how I met the Maori, David and his son Adrian. And they've got a band called Boku Blue. I met them probably around 2015 or so, and I they played, they played that song in their live set. And I bought a copy of their record. I drove home from Luray and I listened to that record the entire way home. I was floored. The songwriting was just incredible. And and that song in particular, Trouble Follows Me, it just really stuck with me. And I remember saying, I am going to record this song someday. I don't know when, I don't know how. I don't even have a band, but someday I'm gonna record that song. I love the lyric, I love the the sentiment of that song, I love the sort of ethereal melody. It's so haunting. And, you know, when it came time to cut the record, I said, you know, I really want to include that song. It's the only cover on the on the album. It's the only song I didn't write on the album. And I think it's probably my favorite song on the record or Ties for favorite. And I was really, really happy with how it came out. And when we were looking for a title, it just it just jumped out. The album just kind of named itself. Dylan Akers and I, who's a great photographer here in town, we went out to go shoot the cover photo for the record. As soon as I saw the photo that he took of me on the railroad tracks with the old Gibson guitar, I said, There, that's that's it. I mean, that's the that's the cover of the record. The when that's the title.

SPEAKER_06 18:41

Isn't that wild how when you put something out into the universe like that, though, it just circles back?

SPEAKER_01 18:46

It's serendipity. And the more you look for it, the more it shows up. Steve Bassett and Cornell Jones came in and did the background vocals on that at the end, and they do there's this call and response. I say, Trouble follows me. And then Steve and Cornell go, Follow me. And I told him, I said, I I want to make it like a blind boys of Alabama kind of thing. And Steve knew instantly, he's like, I got I got you, I got you, baby, I got you. Him and Cornell went and they laid down and they did and they overdubbed themselves like you know, six or eight times. It sounds like a whole chorus doing that call and response, and it's probably my favorite moment on the record.

SPEAKER_05 19:21

So that's only two people?

SPEAKER_01 19:22

Yeah, that's just Steve and Steve and Cornell.

SPEAKER_05 19:25

Yeah, now that is very cool.

SPEAKER_01 19:27

It's it's yeah, it sounds like a whole men's choir.

SPEAKER_05 19:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:29

Yeah, but it's Steve, and it's Steve, and they're covering all the parts from like the high tenor all the way to the low bass. I mean, it's just Cornell, he's like in the basement on that, and it's so cool. It's just, I think that's my favorite. It's certainly the most intimate moment on the record, for sure. It's like the most vulnerable piece. When you're making something like this, you can't be afraid to be vulnerable. You gotta just throw it all out there.

SPEAKER_05 19:52

I think that was the song where I heard a little Lyle Love It in your life. Oh, I love Lyle, right?

SPEAKER_01 19:58

I love I just got to see Lyle. I did the Sandy Beaches cruise this year. I also play from time to time with Leroy Parnell. The past three years, he's taken me out on the Sandy Beaches Cruise. Used to be the Delbert McClinton and Friends Sandy Beaches Cruise, and then Delbert, you know, retired and sold the brand to uh Star Vista production. So now it's Delbert's name is no longer on it, but it's still that Delbert family. You know, a lot of Roots Rock, a lot of blues, a lot of RB. It's just such a great lineup. So I get to go do that with Leroy every year, and Lyle was one of the headliners this year. I had never seen Lyle.

SPEAKER_05 20:29

Oh, I just saw him this last time.

SPEAKER_01 20:31

See him with the large band?

SPEAKER_05 20:33

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 20:33

Yes, amazing. So I saw this was the acoustic band, and he was very clear. He's like, this is not the large band. And I'm like, well, it's still larger than any band I've ever had. Still like eight people up there.

SPEAKER_05 20:44

He's so personable.

SPEAKER_01 20:45

Oh, he's great. He is a hero for sure. Well, I heard some of that in you. I love Lyle. And not just his singing and his songwriting, which obviously is legendary, but his showmanship is incredible. Like, he is a master, master showman, knows how to read the crowd, knows exactly when to make banter, crack a joke, his wry, like dry sense of humor, cracking jokes with the crowd, the comedic mastery of like George Carlin. For me, it was like a case study in how to put on a live show with a band.

SPEAKER_03 21:19

I mean, I'm back there like taking notes, you know, like okay, oh, oh, I see.

SPEAKER_01 21:25

Okay. And he's and he liked me, he's kind of a slight guy too. He's not very big, right? But he's just like this commanding presence, which is so cool. Uh another Asleep at the Wheel was also there, which is a great Western swing band from Texas. They've had been old, old buddies with Lyle. They all came up through the same honky talks and roadhouses. And Ray Benson, who is the leader of Asleep at the Wheel, and Ray, he's like 6'7. He's a monster of a guy, wears gets another six inches on top of that from the Stetson that he wears. I mean, he's just a huge guy. He's got this big Billy Gibbons Z Z top beard. And he comes up there standing next to Lyle, and it's like David and Goliath. They had cut a song together. Lyle invited Ray to come up and sing that song that they had done on the record together. And so Ray came up, and this is, you know, this is in the theater of the boat. Leroy's up like in the front row watching it, having a ball. And, you know, and I'm watching this go down, and Lyle is it's like David and Goliath. Like I said, Lyle is like, he's like five, six, right? He might be shorter than me. But he's still got this command of the crowd. Like it's not about physical stature.

SPEAKER_06 22:28

Well, think about Prince. Look at Prince, look at Prince.

SPEAKER_01 22:31

That's exactly that's what I'm talking about. That's exactly it, has nothing to do with physical size. It's something you can't put your finger on. So Some performers just have that thing, and you can't describe it, but I know it when I see it.

SPEAKER_06 22:43

I think it's magic. Yeah. I've got a question about every day. It was written about your wife. My husband hasn't written me a song yet, so I'm just curious.

SPEAKER_05 22:52

Justin.

SPEAKER_01 22:53

In the early 2000s, before I went in the insurance business, after I had dropped out of college, I worked a bunch of different jobs. I did some crazy stuff. So I was actually on my way to get my journeyman's card as an electrical contractor. And then I got laid off from that. And then I went to work in a warehouse, drove a forklift for a little bit. I was actually driving a produce truck at the time I wrote that song. I think I wrote that song in 2002. And I was running a route from Elliston, Virginia, which is where the warehouse was located, down to Greensboro. And I don't know if you've ever driven from Roanoke to Greensboro on Route 52, but it is not for the faint of heart. Twisty, curvy, ups and downs. I mean, it's a it's a classic mountain four-lane highway. Lots of wrecks. And I used to stop for lunch. I'd stop the truck, and I think I got a Wendy's burger or something, right?

SPEAKER_06 23:41

You think you got a frosty?

SPEAKER_01 23:43

It's possible. I do like a good chocolate fry. Oh, not the vanilla, the vanilla fry.

SPEAKER_03 23:48

Forget vanilla. None of us are vanilla.

SPEAKER_01 23:50

I'm a Coca-Cola man. But anyway, I was just riding down the road and I was thinking about my wife. I'd only been married a couple years at that point. And that melody for everyday, which is, you know, she's my brown hair, blue-eyed angel, it just popped into my head. You know, on some little four-lane highways, they have these little waysides you can pull over. Like so I pulled over. I think I wrote that whole song in about 15 minutes on a Wendy's bag.

SPEAKER_05 24:12

Oh, wow. Wow. Did you save the bag? I was just gonna ask that.

SPEAKER_01 24:16

I don't have the bag. Oh, maybe I wish I still you don't know how many times I have wished I still had that bag. It may have been a napkin, to be fair. I don't remember, but it was it was something related to Wendy's. I remember that.

SPEAKER_06 24:29

Well, it it will be forever preserved on this podcast that that happens.

SPEAKER_01 24:33

So even though if we don't have the actual bag, the best songs, we don't write them. Leroy likes to say, I didn't write it. The big man wrote it. I was just holding the pen. Oh, that's gorgeous. That's the way I feel about it. Like I saw Neil Sadaka just died, and I watched the CBS Sunday morning, and they did this piece, and he was talking about how he feels like a conduit. The songs are out there in the ether somewhere. I think the gift is not the ability to write the song. I think the gift is having the antenna up so that you can plug into the ether. I I really think that those songs, I mean, this sounds maybe corny or new new age or whatever, but I really think there is music in the cosmos floating around out there. And some of us are tuned into it and some of us are not. I could sit down right now and try to write you a song, and it may be total shit. It never fails. Like when I try to write a song deliberately, okay, I'm gonna wake up and at 10 a.m. I'm gonna write for two hours. That works very, very rarely, but for the most of the time, that doesn't work. The good ones, I feel like they're gifts. I have tuned into some frequency in the cosmos that is sending me melodies, lyrics, feel whatever. I I know that sounds corny, but that's how every day came together.

SPEAKER_06 25:44

I love it. Because you're not distracted by spreadsheets anymore. You're actually open to being able to receive it.

SPEAKER_01 25:50

Literally fell out of the sky. I remember, and this has happened more than once, I'm writing as fast as I can write. And it feels like taking dictation because the words come so fast, I don't feel like I'm right, it's coming from my head. It's I know it's not coming from my head. And I've heard Bob Dylan talk about this too.

SPEAKER_06 26:06

Well, and the fact that you had to literally pull over. Like it was coming to you, and you had to pull over to receive it. That's the muse.

SPEAKER_01 26:13

I always answer when my kids call, or when my wife calls, I always answer, you know? And and it's like when when the songwriting muse calls, I always answer. I never say no because I find that the more you say yes, the more often she'll come back. Sometimes I'm just like, I can't deal with this right now. I gotta roll over and go back to sleep. You go back to sleep, and then I may not get any inspiration for 90 days. You rejected it. You're getting punished. I mean, I'm not doing that, Dan. Who knows? So this song is called The Rambler's Prayer, and I have not recorded this yet, and I'm gonna get around to that very soon. But I'm gonna send this out to all of the all of the hobos that are still out there riding the rails, all the legendary cats that did that, the Rambler Colossus of Rhodes, Bozo Texeno, all those guys. Freight Bandit. This is for you guys.

SPEAKER_02 27:01

This is called the Rambler's Prayer Stuck again in Kansas City, waiting for train, dreaming about a hobo's heaven and sunny sky this Our Yard's mighty lonesome. Near a friend can I find just greed and cold in the street, but it's all mine. I hope I die where Magnolia's bloomin'. I hope they lay me down near a blackberry vine. I wanna be warm when a fly to glory. I hope I die in the summertime. It ain't easy being the rambler, just can't seem to rest my mind. Sometimes I get to thinking about another place, another time, you know. I take my medicine when it's freezing cold outside to feed a snow in Argentine, but I feel fine. I hope I die where Magnolia's bloomin'. I hope they lay me down near a blackberry vine. I wanna be warm when I flood of glory. I hope I die in the summertime. I wanna go see my granddaddy. I wanna fish that pier again getting tired of all this suffering in a world of sin. I hope I die where Magnolia's bloomin'. I hope they lay me down near a blackberry vine. I wanna be warm when I fly to glory, and I hope I die in the summertime. I wanna fly in the sunny southland, and I hope I die in the summertime I hope I die in the summertime.

SPEAKER_06 31:37

Love love that is so beautiful. I kind of want that on my gravestone. Yeah. Oh, that is gorgeous. So my dad was a sheriff in Montana.

SPEAKER_01 31:47

Okay.

SPEAKER_06 31:48

For years.

SPEAKER_01 31:48

I like where this is going. This is so good you got me, you got me swinging right now. Um, this is cool.

SPEAKER_06 31:53

So him and John Walsh, my dad, one of the one of the one of his cases was featured on America's The Most Wanted. So he got to know John Walsh really well. At one point, they were just sitting around having coffee, and John told him about a period of time where he just rode the rode the trains for like a year. John Walsh? Yes. And I can't remember the timing if it was after Adam disappeared or what that was about. But I just remember my dad telling me the story and saying, you know, I always wished that I had just done that. You know, no responsibilities, just kind of seeing where you end up. So it's fascinating to me that you wrote that song because I haven't really even thought of that in years.

SPEAKER_01 32:35

You gotta watch that film, Who is Bozo Texino by Bill Daniel? It's on YouTube. The folks that are out there like riding the rails, they get this unfair stigma of, oh, they're drug addicts, they're narduels, they're criminals, they're and you know, there's I'm sure there's some of that. But the folks they interviewed in this film, these are just these are these are cats that have been out there doing it for decades. And they're thoughtful, they're intelligent, they are very deliberately living their lives this way. My son is is a switchman for Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad. So he sees these guys a lot, and he's the one that turned me on to this soon. He's like, Dad, you gotta watch this. He's like, This is amazing. This is like these are the guys that we see like sneaking in and out of the yard and stuff. One of the most powerful documentaries I've ever seen. It's so good. You guys out there in podcast land, please listen to it. I'm telling you, watch it. It's great.

SPEAKER_05 33:24

You toured with Great Southern, continuing the musical legacy of the Allman Brothers, and I did hear a lot of Allman Brothers influence in your album. What was that experience like?

SPEAKER_01 33:34

Oh my gosh, that it was incredible. So, you know, Dickie Betts had had come off the road in the late teens, 2018, 19, or something like that. He had suffered some some really serious health setbacks. Leroy Parnell, who's been a dear friend of mine for a long time, called me. I was at I remember I'll never forget, I was at a gig, and the my my phone rang during sound check. It was Leroy, like, I want to I want to take this. I said, Hey man, I'm at a sound check right now. I can't really talk. Can I call you back? And he's like, Well, you better, because this might be the most important phone call of your life. And I said, Okay, you got my attention. So, I mean, I couldn't wait to get through that gig and call him back. So I called him back and he said, Hey, you're not gonna believe this, but Dickie is putting Great Southern back together with all the guys that were in the band when it broke up, and he has chosen me to be, you know, the the the front man, and we need a number two guitar. He's like, and I can't think of anybody I'd rather have out there as my wingman than you because you know this catalog of music so well. You know Dickie Betts' music, like the back of your hand. And Dickie is you know, he's been one of my heroes since I was about 14, 15 years old. And so this was like this was the call that you always dream about getting, and like manna from heaven. Like, are you serious? Like, I'm gonna get to be in an actual band that put together by one of the Almond brothers? Like, that's insane. Sure enough, yeah. And and uh he's like, Well, come out to Nashville, crash with me for a week, stay out here, we'll we'll just we'll work this stuff up. So that's what I did. I went out, went out to Leroy's house and stayed for, I don't know, five or six days. Just stayed in the guest bedroom, and we would get up, not that early, not at Leroy's house, have a bunch of coffee, and and just sit down and started going through this music like from the ground up, like figuring out who's gonna play what, who's doing this part, who's doing that harmony line. And we hit the road uh maybe a month or so after that. We left out of Connecticut. The first tour we left out of Connecticut and we did an East Coast thing. We did like the city winery tour, and we played all the city wineries, I think, east of the Mississippi. It was fabulous. I mean, being out on the road with those guys who had been with Dickey and been around Dickey you know, and of course having Leroy out at the helm of this thing.

SPEAKER_06 35:45

Musicians talk about the difference between the magic on stage and the reality of life on the road.

SPEAKER_01 35:51

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_06 35:52

Uh so I'm curious what that looks like for you.

SPEAKER_01 35:54

I think about this a lot. Got a working title called Smoke and Mirrors about that, and it's it's about exactly what you're talking about how it's plastic. To a certain extent, what we do on stage is fake. I mean, there's there's a certain degree of showmanship. Every touring musician has a little bit of P.T. Barnum, Carney Barker, Huckster. If you're good at it and you care, it's a show. Yeah. People are coming to see you. They're not coming to a political debate or a lecture or church. They are coming to forget about the shitty work week they had. They are coming to forget about the fact that their marriage is falling apart. They're coming to go into this fantasy land for a couple hours. And that's on you to take them out of whatever shittiness is happening in their world and transport into this magical place for a couple hours. I think that is an honor and an incredible responsibility. These people have paid good money for tickets to come see you do that. I got to chat with a great guitar player in Nashville named Brian Sutton one time. I was like, man, how do you do that? You're just a hammering. He's like, you know, before every single show I go out, I tell myself, this may be my last gig, and I don't want my last gig to be shitty. That has stuck with me ever since then. But I'll tell you where it hits home, though, Jess. It's a great question. I love this topic and I love this question. There's a Jackson Brown song called The Loadout. There's a line in the song where he's like, but now all I hear now is the sound of slamming doors and folding chairs, and that's a sound they'll never know. And he's talking about the audience because the audience is all gone out. The magic show is over. The smoke and mirrors is gone. The light show is off. The fog is gone. Now you just got a bunch of union guys in black shirts on stage, winding cables, taking down rigging, you know, low putting amps back in cases, doing all this stuff that is very not sexy. It's how the sausage is made. You just go to the store and you buy your sausage. God knows you don't want to see how they make that shit. You don't. You don't want to smell the inside of the bus where your favorite rock stars have been cruising. You don't want to smell that. That's the reality of touring and being on the road. It's not glamorous. It's such a dichotomy between the realities of being on the road. It's grueling. Uh I'm friends with some of the guys in the band Carbon Leaf, and they've been doing this. Those guys, I mean, you want to add road stories. Holy shit, talk to Carter Gravit. I mean, he's been doing this for 20 years. It's like Jackson Brown said, though, the only time that seems so short, too short is the time we get to play. That's what makes it all worth it. Two hours or whatever on stage. That's like Jackson Brown said. We remember why we can't. It's not we have to do this, we get to do this.

SPEAKER_05 38:31

So the one thing that really jumped out at me about this record, you just do so much from Southern Rock to even the dead. I heard a little lie, love it in there, some jazz, all these awesome musicians you have with you.

SPEAKER_01 38:44

Probably 70% Nashville friends, and then 30% Richmond, Richmond folks. It was an amazing treat to work with that level of musicians on this record. A song just by itself, sung and performed on like piano or acoustic guitar or whatever. To me, that's like the skeleton. That's like the bones of the work. It takes a team, it takes a village, it takes a producer, it takes a great studio, it takes amazing players who have this killer intuition, who know when to play what, and maybe more importantly, know when not to play. Yeah, I was extremely blessed to be able to have the cast of characters on this record that we did.

SPEAKER_05 39:22

Well, they believed in you.

SPEAKER_01 39:23

Oh, they were just showing up for the pay.

SPEAKER_05 39:26

It shows. It sounds wonderful. You have to pick up the album.

SPEAKER_01 39:30

It's on vinyl, it's on CD. If you have a 2008 Nissan Centro with a CD player, I can hook you up with a CD. It's all at williewilliamsmusic.com. You can go to my merch page and you can check out Trouble Follows. Trouble Follows Me, and I will take my narrow ass down to the post office and mail you one myself.

SPEAKER_06 39:48

Yes. Let's jump into a speed round and then we've got to jump into our little surprise. Willie's got to cook dinner tonight.

SPEAKER_05 39:57

What are we making, by the way?

SPEAKER_01 39:58

Tonight we have Greek salmon with steamed broccoli. And he cooks. I can read our recipe like a motherfucker, let me tell you what.

SPEAKER_06 40:06

The ladies are drooling.

SPEAKER_05 40:08

Yes, very much.

SPEAKER_06 40:09

All right. So speed round is just your instinctive answer to each question. Don't think about it too much. Just boom, boom. Don't be scared. Don't be scared. All right. Ready, set. First guitar you ever played.

SPEAKER_01 40:21

A Montgomery Ward,$25 piece of shit.

SPEAKER_05 40:24

Love that. Studio recording or live stage?

SPEAKER_01 40:27

Live. Every time.

unknown 40:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 40:29

First album you fell in love with.

SPEAKER_01 40:32

Almond Brothers Live at the Fillmore East.

SPEAKER_05 40:34

Artists you'd love to open for.

SPEAKER_01 40:36

Well, I'll love it.

SPEAKER_05 40:37

Oh beautiful answer.

SPEAKER_06 40:39

First concert.

SPEAKER_05 40:40

This one always cracks me up.

SPEAKER_01 40:43

Well, Bon Jovi. That was kind of that was not really. I was in sixth grade, you know. The first concert that I went to, like kind of on my own accord, was George Thurgood and the Delaware destroyers, and they rocked the house. It was fucking awesome.

SPEAKER_05 40:58

What was yours, Donnie? Oh my gosh, that's what I was gonna say. A lot of people answer this question. It's embarrassing. Sean Cassidy.

SPEAKER_06 41:05

Wow. What were you? Four?

SPEAKER_05 41:09

Yes, my dad was working with somebody that had tickets or whatever. And I think I was only like I mean, you had to be seven. That was like six or seven. That was my first concert.

SPEAKER_06 41:19

I was Pat Benatar, and it was a date that he gave me diamonds. I broke up with him two days later. Oh my goodness. I I wasn't mean. I just I wrote it out. All right. If you could play one legendary venue, what would it be?

SPEAKER_05 41:32

I love this question.

SPEAKER_01 41:34

Probably the Beacon Theater in New York. That was a good idea. I'm aiming real. I wouldn't have said, you know, Madison Square Garden, because it's just like that's that ship probably sailed.

SPEAKER_06 41:41

Put it out there. When you put it out there, things are.

SPEAKER_01 41:43

Maybe you're right. Maybe you're right. Yeah. Let's go with that. MSG. Let's do it. Yeah, let's do it.

SPEAKER_05 41:48

I love it. Blues, country, or rock, if you had to choose just one.

SPEAKER_01 41:53

Country.

SPEAKER_06 41:54

Nice quick. Favorite place you've ever performed.

SPEAKER_01 41:57

San Juan, Puerto Rico. On the cruise with Leroy.

SPEAKER_05 42:00

Best live show you've ever seen.

SPEAKER_01 42:03

Either Winton Marsalis quintet in Roanoke was unbelievable. And I also saw Tony Rice with the David Grisman Quintet reunion at Floyd Fest, the second Floyd Fest. Probably that. Probably that. Grisman with Rice was probably it.

SPEAKER_06 42:17

That's after my heart right now.

SPEAKER_01 42:19

I'm an old hippie. Yes.

SPEAKER_06 42:21

So you mentioned a love of radio, which Johnny and I connect with because we both came from radio. I was on the ad sales side and did some voice work, and Johnny was a DJ in the Nagshead area. Where did the interest in radio or love for radio start for you?

SPEAKER_01 42:35

I was born in South Carolina. I lived in South Carolina for the first five years of my life. And I can remember vividly sitting in my dad's lap in the recliner with the family high-fives on and listening to You Got the Wolf Man, baby. You know, Wolfman Jack was still on the air when I was, you know, three, four years old. And I've never forget hearing that come through the speakers, and it like touched my soul or something. And I'm like, that is the coolest shit I have ever heard. That guy is magic.

SPEAKER_06 43:04

So knowing that we all have, you know, kind of this love for radio, and apparently Wolfman Jack, Johnny on a whim this morning reached out to Wolfman Jack's son.

SPEAKER_05 43:15

Todd Weston Smith.

SPEAKER_06 43:16

And explained that, you know, we had just started this podcast and you were coming on and asked him if we could share some clips from back in the day.

SPEAKER_05 43:25

Even just a blip.

SPEAKER_06 43:26

Just a blip. Okay, so then he wrote back and said, I can do you one better. I'm gonna send you a clip, and I don't want y'all to listen to it. I want you to just play it for the first time in the middle of your interview. So we have not listened to it. Oh no. But he said it's one of his favorite. Yes, he says it's one of the funniest ones that he ever did.

SPEAKER_05 43:44

Oh, let's go. Yeah, let's go.

SPEAKER_00 43:46

Let's do this. Uh hello.

SPEAKER_03 43:47

Hello.

SPEAKER_00 43:48

Uh yes, uh, uh, I'd like to move something.

SPEAKER_03 43:50

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 43:53

Well, I I'd like to uh first uh it's it's it's an animal, it's it's a very large moose. And uh did you have facilities for moving a moose, uh say from New York to Los Angeles? Yes. Hello, who is this?

SPEAKER_03 44:10

Tony.

SPEAKER_00 44:11

Hi Tony.

SPEAKER_03 44:12

Hi.

SPEAKER_00 44:12

Um I was asking the girl, you see, I I want to move a moose from New York to Los Angeles. And and I just wanted to have the facilities to uh haul a uh a live moose for me. I'm sorry, I didn't understand. Could you say that again, please? Does railway express do that kind of thing? I will I I never folks ever moved any moose before? Mike Lisa uh this uh this uh this moose is called Rufus to Moose. That's really um you say you don't have no facilities to uh move a moose.

SPEAKER_06 45:01

No, sir, we don't.

SPEAKER_00 45:03

Thank you, Tony.

SPEAKER_06 45:07

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 45:08

Well man.

SPEAKER_06 45:09

Oh, official thank you. Right from his son. Thank you, Todd Western Tony.

SPEAKER_01 45:14

Thank you, Todd. That's incredible, man. Thank you, brother.

SPEAKER_06 45:16

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 45:17

That is that made my day. I'm gonna have to go tonight and like YouTube and pull up a bunch of old Wolfman Jack clips.

SPEAKER_05 45:23

I know. I I was blown away when he responded. I'm like, just you have to read it.

SPEAKER_01 45:27

This has been really fun. Thanks for having me, you guys. Skydog, which is a tribute to the Almond Brothers band, which I'm proud to play with, based here in Richmond. So many people go, I can't believe there's an Almond Brothers tribute band here in Richmond. I did not know that. There is. And we're playing this Saturday. In fact, our normal keyboard player, Joey, his wife is having a baby, so he will not be joining us. And we've got Steve Bassett sitting in with us. Wow. Okay. Cover all the organ duties. Steve's gonna bring his old Bertha, Hammond organ out, play the keys, you know, and and like I said, my buddy Dan is coming down to play harmonica, coming down from Philly to do that. And we're gonna play the live at Fillmore East Record, which happens to be my favorite all-time album, all the way from start to finish. So that's pretty cool. I will be with my full band at River Rock this year on May 16th. I'll be playing, I think I've got the 3 to 4 p.m. time slot at Dominion River Rock. And this year, what's really cool, I you guys probably know they're they're renovating Brown's Island right now, so it's like completely bulldozed. So all the River Rock music is going to be at the new amphitheater, which is really cool. I've never played a stage that big. Nice. And Steve Bassett will be with me on that, so with the full band, so that'll be pretty fun. That'll be pretty fun. And then May 23rd, I'll have the full band at Flatiron Crossroads in Gloucester. And then just stay tuned for some really cool solo stuff coming up this summer. I haven't announced it yet, so I can't say it yet. But do have some that do have some neat stuff booked.

SPEAKER_05 46:56

Well, the next time you're gonna do a solo thing, you should come back on here and kind of update us what's going on.

SPEAKER_01 47:01

I could do that.

SPEAKER_05 47:02

All right, one more last question. If you could go back to the moment when you decided to leave all the corporate behind and pursue music full time, what would you tell that version of yourself?

SPEAKER_01 47:14

Buckle up.

SPEAKER_06 47:16

Such a good answer. Awesome. Willie, thank you for being on the hook.

SPEAKER_01 47:20

Thanks, guys. It was a pleasure. Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_06 47:22

This is the hook. So if you're creative and listening to this, we want your story. The messy one, the real one, and the one that you don't usually post. You can submit to be on the show by visiting our website and filling out the be on the hook form. Just head to johnnyandjess.com. That's J-O-H-N-I-A-N-D-J-E-S-S.com. That's where you'll find everything you need to get started.

SPEAKER_05 47:48

And you can follow us on Facebook at the hook to stay up to date on new episodes, featured artists, and what's coming next.

SPEAKER_06 48:00

This has been Jess and Johnny reminding you every artist has a story, and every story has a hook.