Wet Willie: Keep On Smilin'
Jim Esposito, Creem, September 1974
THE ONLY THING missing from Keep On Smilin' is one of Capricorn's "Support Southern Music" buttons on the jacket of that blind old black beggar with the beat up guitar adorning the front cover. Colonel Sanders finally got his hands on the little "Red Hot Chicken" just like when the Big Money in Detroit discovered stock car racing. In its own funky sort of way Keep On Smilin' is Wet Willie's renaissance. It's one of those good news/bad news albums. The bad news is that Wet Willie, probably the hardest core Southern band, has finally gone commercial.
Total word count of piece: 516