THE SPLENDID BOHEMIANS PRESENT A NEW SERIES: THE SUNNY SIDE OF MY STREET with THE "MIGHTY MEZ" - SONGS TO MAKE YOU FEEL GOOD - EPISODE #19 - KEEP ON SMILING by WET WILLIE (CAPRICORN, 1974)

Preston, the bass player in my garage band THE NERVE recently suggested that this song would be a good one for the band to try. I remembered it fondly and I felt good singing it, and we started to work it into our repertoire. Jimmy Hall, the original lead singer on the track said that the first time Ricky Hirsch, the guitarist for Wet Willie, played him the signature riff, “it felt like a sunny breeze on a beach.” I agree, and apparently a lot of other people thought so, too, because it made a comeback during the pandemic: “keep on smiling through the rain, laughing at the pain, rollin’ with the changes, ’til the sun comes out again.” Right? We all needed to remind ourselves that there would be a light at the end of that dark tunnel. There is a great YouTube clip from three years ago with Jimmy singing it with the band Blackberry Smoke, on the 50th anniversary of Capricorn Studios, and the man sounds better than ever. In 1974, when it debuted, it was produced for Macon, GA’s Capricorn Records (the same folks that brought us The Allman Brothers), by the legendary Tom Dowd, who came up with the “stop time” bridge - that lifts the song into the final heavenly chorus. It made it to #10 on the national charts, and earned its wings as a perfect feel good Sunny Song.