[1] Tee arranged, co-wrote and led the band on the Wild Magnolias' self-titled 1974 debut album.

The popularity of that recording, and the subsequent They Call Us Wild, introduced the Mardi Gras Indians' street-beat funk to the world.

In the late 1960s, Willie Tee & the Souls played venues from the Apollo Theater in Harlem to the Ivanhoe on Bourbon Street.

After hearing the band at the Ivanhoe in 1968, jazz musician Cannonball Adderley encouraged Tee to record an instrumental album.

Houston's Geto Boys sampled "Smoke My Peace Pipe", a song Tee had written for the Wild Magnolias.