1 post tagged “van morrison”

About four years ago I heard a song on the radio while driving to work (back when I lived too far away to walk), and it sounded like vintage Van Morrison, but I had never heard it before.  My web searches for the few lyrics I could remember turned up nothing beyond a message on a lyrics forum asking "What's the song that sounds like Van Morrison with lyrics about smiling through the rain and laughing through the pain?", but with no messages in response.  I gave up, but tonight I heard the song again in a restaurant; the staff couldn't help me (wouldn't you know they used to have a screen that would show what song was playing on their Muzak service, but they got rid of it), so I listened hard to try to remember a few more of the lyrics.  And it paid off: the song is not by Van Morrison, but by the American "Southern Rock" band Wet Willie, the title track and hit single (unbeknownst to me!) from their 1974 album Keep On Smilin'--

Don't try to tell me they weren't going for a Van Morrison vibe on that one.  The only song I ever knew by Wet Willie was the less successful "Street Corner Serenade" from 1978--

Which never struck me as sounding like Southern Rock, but maybe the bulk of their other material did; and being from Alabama they were southern by geography if not capital-S Southern by sound.  More research is required on my part, obviously.