A name from David Grissom was the catalyst that kickstarted Webb Wilder’s thirteenth album, Hillbilly Speedball.

“David mentioned, ‘I’ve acquired a brand new tune I need your opinion on,’” Wilder recounts. “After he despatched me the acoustic guitar and vocal, I requested, ‘What do you concentrate on me doing it?’”

That title reduce, that includes a Grissom solo, sits alongside covers of the McCoys (“Sorrow”), Chuck Berry (“Stunning Delilah”), Savoy Brown (“Inform Mama”), and a clutch of originals. “V-8 Ford Blues” comes from Willie Love’s 1952 recording on Trumpet Data, owned and operated by Webb’s aunt, Lillian McMurry.

Along with main a band, the Mississippi Musicians’ Corridor of Fame inductee who was an early deejay on XM Satellite tv for pc Radio’s Cross Nation channel, hosts 5 exhibits every week on WMOT/Roots Radio of Center Tennessee State College. He has additionally narrated the audio books The Man In White by Johnny Money, Willie Nelson’s Me and Paul, and Barry Mazor’s biography of the Everly Brothers, Blood Concord.

As a child, have been you conscious of Aunt Lillian’s recording profession?
I didn’t actually understand that Lillian and Uncle Willard’s label had any form of significance till I used to be school age, which is embarrassing! After I found they’d recorded Elmore James and Sonny Boy Williamson, that was the actual “gentle bulb second” for me.

Most pop or nation information as of late have songs written by committee, every recorded in numerous studios with completely different producers.
That’s the brand new Nashville. Even when I didn’t reduce every thing stay on the ground, I’m nonetheless coming from the place I’m coming from – a rootsy album not geared toward that business market. I’ve by no means been good at homework; I’m form of a spontaneous man. A whole lot of the songs started with me enjoying guitar to a click on monitor and placing every thing on high of that. It’s nonetheless fairly natural whenever you’ve acquired Richard Bennett saying, “I believe I’ve acquired one thing,” and coming again with an exquisite 12-string solo.

A reviewer known as you “Tom Petty for the trailer set.”
I used to be and am an enormous fan. I actually associated to Petty’s imaginative and prescient. I respect that he noticed “the massive image,” because it have been. Like all of my favourite artists, he had roots and went someplace with them. Additionally, I believe he felt obligated or inclined, like I do, to be no less than considerably hip to all of the completely different cool genres and to include and contact on them infrequently along with his personal music, creating an eclectic physique of labor not in contrast to, dare I say it, the Beatles. The Beatles opened the door for us all to do this. The difficulty is, by the point I began making information, no labels needed you to do an album made up of disparate influences. All of them needed a ZZ Prime, Ramones, or Georgia Satellites form of “one sound” factor that they may market.

How has your onstage setup modified?
I went from utilizing the Hiwatt 50 with 1×12 cab to a ’65 Bassman head with the identical cab. Then within the final 12 months or so, I began utilizing a ’66 Bandmaster chassis in a custom-built open-back 1×12 Fender-style combo cab that Chris Swope made. I nonetheless take a few Teles and a 3rd guitar – typically my mahogany Historic ’58 Flying V, different occasions it’s three Teles with one tuned open. I’ve used Teles with two humbuckers a very good bit during the last 20 years, however I nonetheless use the normal single-coils, too, particularly within the studio. So far as pedals, it’s only a Malekko mini Trem, an Xotic EP Booster, a silver J. Rockett Archer overdrive, and an Electro-Harmonix Holy Grail Nano for reverb.

On “Stunning Delilah,” I performed the ’61 ES-330TD that belonged to Gerry “Phareaux” Felton, who was within the unique Omar & the Howlers, and the Commandos, by way of a tweed Vibrolux. On “Sorrow” and “Kick Me After I’m Down,” I used this components Tele that I acquired autographed by Hank Garland, Chet Atkins, Scotty Moore, Duane Eddy, James Burton, Jimmy Johnson, Hubert Sumlin, Steve Cropper, and Don Helms.

Did you be taught something from doing solo live shows?
What I spotted is that solo, three-piece, and four-piece all have their limitations and their freedoms, but when the tune is sweet it doesn’t matter what you do with it. I believe that made me a extra assured guitar participant, and made it simpler to adapt to a three-piece.

Does enjoying as a trio, versus having one other guitar participant, require a special tone?
 Perhaps I fatten up the tone extra when enjoying as a trio, or possibly I simply do this anyway as of late. After I hear the varied stay moments captured, often by cell telephones, that present up on social media, I at all times determine the tone may possibly be fatter – though the V at all times sounds fats. Three chords and a cloud of mud, you already know? How a lot stuff do you wanna need to haul out of the venue on the finish of the night time? – Dan Forte

This text initially appeared in VG’s October 2025 problem. All copyrights are by the creator and Classic Guitar journal. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.