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Willie "Big Eyes" Smith
The longtime
drummer with the Muddy Waters Band, bluesman Willie "Big Eyes" Smith
was born in Helena, AK, on January 19, 1936; raised by his sharecropper
grandparents, as a child his neighbors included the likes of Robert
Nighthawk and Pinetop Perkins. At 17 he traveled to Chicago to visit
his mother, and never returned home; instead Smith taught himself
harmonica and drums, and with harpist Clifton James and guitarist Bobby
Lee Burns formed a blues trio. Upon marrying his first wife in 1955,
Smith agreed to retire from performing, but within a year he was
backing Arthur "Big Boy" Spires; after a brief attempt at fronting his
own band, he returned to his drum kit, joining Hudson Shower's Red
Devil Trio. After a few lean years that forced him to go on welfare,
Smith joined Waters in 1961 and remained with the blues giant until
1980, when he co-founded the Legendary Blues Band. His first solo
recording, Bag Full of Blues, did not appear until 1995; Nothin' But
the Blues Y'all followed four years later and Blues from the Heart was
issued in fall 2000. Bluesin' It appeared in 2004 from Electro-Fi while
the pleasant Way Back was released in 2006 by Hightone Records.
-Written
by Jason Ankeny
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