Willie "Too Big" Hall was born August 8, 1950, in Memphis, Tennessee. He began his career as a drummer in 1965, while still in high school. He played with the Bar-Kays band and Isaac Hayes's band The Movement. In the seventies, as part of the Stax-Volt Recording Section Team from 1968–77, Hall backed dozens of major Stax artists on recordings, including such artists as The Emotions, Little Milton, Carla and Rufus Thomas, Johnnie Taylor, The Staple Singers, Albert King and Isaac Hayes. Hall produced Hayes' last Stax album, and did percussion on Hayes' albums Hot Buttered Soul and The Isaac Hayes Movement, as well as his Theme from Shaft.
Hall also recorded the album Universal Language with Booker T. & the MGs, and later joined guitarist Steve "The Colonel" Cropper and bass player Donald "Duck" Dunn as a member of The Blues Brothers, which led to his appearance in the hit movie The Blues Brothers and its sequel. He appeared as himself in the 2008 movie Soul Men.
Hall has toured the world and recorded with a variety of artists, including The Blues Brothers, Cab Calloway, Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, KC and the Sunshine Band, Bonnie Raitt, Earl Scruggs, Charlie Daniels Band, Todd Rundgren and Roger McGuinn, among others. He is currently a member of The Bo-Keys, a band of highly respected Memphis musicians, including Isaac Hayes's wah-wah guitarist Charles "Skip" Pitts. He is the father of rapper Gangsta Pat.[1]
|
||||||||||||||