Before Jimmie Allen had platinum hits, a tour bus or even a record deal – Rehoboth Beach concert booker Vikki Walls took a chance on the then-little-known singer from Milton in 2014.
A producer friend from Nashville reminded Walls that the scrapple-loving Allen had a band, she said. It just so happened that Allen was going to be back home from Nashville on a visit, and her friend asked if the blossoming singer could play her PopFest event in Dewey Beach.
She made it happen.
Nearly a decade later, Walls is smiling so big you can see the back of her teeth. She’s ecstatic that her friend Allen might win his first-ever Grammy on Sunday. The category is Best New Artist.
“Nobody deserves it more than him. Nobody works harder than him literally, out of anyone that I know,” said Walls, talent buyer/promoter for Highway One, which owns clubs the Bottle & Cork and Rusty Rudder in Dewey Beach.
“He’s either doing an interview. He’s doing some kind of TV show. He’s on ‘Family Feud.’ He’s everywhere. He was on Nick [Cannon’s ‘Wild ‘N Out’],” she added.
Walls has worked in the music industry for three decades and attracted a number of big country acts down to “lower slower” Delaware where Allen is from, including Jason Aldean, Toby Keith, Florida Georgia Line, Thomas Rhett and Cole Swindell.
“I have worked with a lot of people… [but] he’s just very loyal. He does not forget about you,” Walls said.
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Ten minutes before Allen was set to go on TV last year, he got on the phone to chat with this promoter friend.
“I called him just to chat about something. And he picked up the phone and he was like, ‘Well, I gotta go in a minute. I’m gonna get ready for the finale of ‘Dancing with the Stars.’ I’m like, ‘Why did you pick up the phone?!’” Walls recalled with a laugh.
“He’s always like, ‘Just remember, you’re family. He always says that,’” she said.
Singer is ‘hilarious’ with jokes
After graduating from Cape Henlopen High School in 2004, Allen enrolled at Delaware State University and mainly sang R&B on campus.
There he befriended Newark native and rapper Kyle “Kae Hock” Hockaday. Hock, who enrolled at DSU in 2002, said he met Jimmie in either 2004 or 2005.
To his surprise, Allen wasn’t just a talented singer, but also skilled at roasting people.
“Jimmie is hilarious. He has a great sense of humor. He spoke very freely and he would say whatever was on his mind. He probably would stop just short of being offensive,” Hock recalled.
Allen and Hock clicked because both were moved to pursue careers in the music industry.
In fact, Allen had a manager at the time who doubled as a DSU student. Meanwhile, Hock removed the racks from the closet in his on-campus apartment and converted it into a recording studio.
“Whenever I would call Jimmie and say, ‘Yo, I want you to get on this joint,’ he’d be right there. “I always felt like Jimmie was an extremely talented artist.”
He was a hard worker, too, Hock added.
The singer and rapper each performed at various talent showcases on campus, and they even shared the stage together. At that time, Hock said, he didn’t know Allen was into country music, something the rapper wouldn’t discover until years later.
“We believed in ourselves a lot. So meeting Jimmie, he was an artist with a lot of talent who people felt could make it. We kind of all felt like that. You never know who’s actually going to become a star, and we were all kind of moving on campus like we were stars back then.”
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Fellow DSU Hornet Andre Brown also was friends with Hock and Allen. The William Penn grad reminisced about how “Jimmie had always been passionate about singing.”
He also remembered the Milton singer always looking relaxed.
“Jimmie was always smiling. I’m being honest. I can’t remember a time when Jimmie was frustrated or upset, or yelling,” the Dover resident observed. “Personality-wise, he was always bright and very amicable among folks. He was always a good guy.”
College dropout, moved to Nashville
After two years at DSU, Allen transferred to the University of Delaware.
“My only reason for going to college was to have the college experience. I had no intention of ever graduating,” Allen told Delaware Online/The News Journal in a 2018 interview.
Around 2008, after spending a short time at UD, the singer dropped out and moved to Nashville.
“When I got to Nashville, I lived in a trailer with no electric for a little bit. I lived in my car, too. When I moved there, I only had $21 to my name and no job.”
The singer said he landed a job at a gym and used the place for showers and to wash clothes. “Then when I got off, I would go into town and try to meet people, play different songwriter series and try to get connected.”
In a timespan of less than 10 years, a lot happened. Allen auditioned for “American Idol” but didn’t make the cut. He also formed the alt-pop duo Colours of London.
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In 2014, Walls brought the struggling Nashville singer to PopFest in Dewey Beach when he was still experimenting with pop.
Although he didn’t deliver a country set in Dewey, Walls noticed he was magic on stage as he already had the showmanship and the “moves, vocals, songs; he had it all going on.”
Hock said he met up with Allen in 2014 or ’15 at SXSW in Austin, Texas, where they both had performances. The Milton singer was still singing pop.
Milton’s musical ‘chameleon’
A few years later, Hock said, Allen gave him a call to let him know he was interested in singing country and was finally about to sign a record deal.
Hock said he got off the phone with Allen feeling like he might make some noise in the music industry. “Jimmie is musically like a chameleon,” he said. “I mean, he can make any genre of music.
“He made R&B when we were in college when he thought that might suit him as an artist,” Hock continued. “And when he felt like that wasn’t suiting him, he went on to make [pop] music.”
Allen landed a publishing deal in 2016 with Wide Open Music.
In 2018, Allen skyrocketed to fame. He signed a record deal with Broken Bow Records and dropped his debut album “Mercury Lane,” named after the Milton street he grew up on. The album features his platinum single “Best Shot.”
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The singer-songwriter has been full-steam ahead since then. He’s made a number of TV appearances and racked up lots of accolades.
In 2019, he received his first ACM nomination for New Male Artist of the Year and a CMA Awards nomination for New Artist of the Year in 2020.
In 2020, he dropped his second platinum hit “Make Me Want To.” In 2021, the singer dropped the 16-song “Bettie James Gold Edition.”
Last summer, Allen got married in Delaware and launched his new Bettie James Festival in Milton. The name Bettie James is a tribute to Allen’s late father, James Allen, and late grandmother, Bettie Snead.
In the fall he competed in season 30 of “Dancing With the Stars.”
In November, Allen won the ACM Award for New Male Artist of the Year – the first Black artist to win that category since the awards were founded.
Allen said in a statement he hopes the win “open[s] some doors for more Black artists to have success in country and more Black artists to feel comfortable enough to do country if that’s what they want to do.”
Over the holiday season, he performed in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and had tour dates with rapper Nelly. He also sang as part of the “Disney Parks Magical Christmas Day Parade,” which aired on Christmas.
In February, Allen was nominated as Outstanding New Artist by the 53rd NAACP Image Awards. That month it also was announced that he’ll be a mentor on season 20 of “American Idol.”
In March, Allen co-costed the ACM Awards with Dolly Parton and Gabby Barrett and was nominated for ACM Male Artist of the Year.
During the ceremony, he performed his new song “Down Home,” in tribute to his father who died in 2019.
‘He brags’ about Delaware
After such a string of successes, the only thing that’s changed about Allen is it takes a little longer to hear back from him.
“It hasn’t gone to his head. I think he’s still down to earth,” Walls said. “I went to his wedding [last year] and he was just as goofy at his wedding.”
Walls said she last heard from Allen in March and they discussed the second Bettie James Fest, which is set for Hudson Fields on Aug. 13.
Ever since Walls brought the singer to Dewey Beach in 2014, before the world knew who he was, she’s been able to bring him back, sometimes playing two or three shows per year, she said.
“Why do you think he keeps coming back? I gave him his first gigs. And he never forgets that.”
He’s also done a number of benefit shows in Delaware, including his annual Christmas concert which supports multiple schools in Sussex County.
“He never lets anybody forget he’s from Delaware. He brags about it,” said Walls, who added: “He loves scrapple sandwiches” and “He never claimed that he’s from someplace else.”
On Sunday, Allen will compete for his first Grammy Award, and Walls thinks this will just be the tip of the iceberg for her friend.
“He’s a very intelligent and great businessman,” she said. “When it comes to music, he runs his boat. He knows how to control his career and he’s got a great team.”
The 64th annual Grammy Awards will air Sunday at 8 p.m. on CBS. For more info, visit CBS.com.
Andre Lamar is the features/lifestyle reporter. If you have an interesting story idea, email Andre Lamar at alamar@gannett.com
