Jimmy Smith

I did my first recording. It was called The Champ.

Yeah, you know everybody has somebody that they patterned themselves after.

I just came from Aspen, Colorado and they had fifteen kids I played for and they all played horns.

I always had the facial hair so I looked older than I was.

All the colleges I played, most of the colleges, they were white.

Michael Coleman, now that was a boy that taught me some stuff too.

Three months. I was playing the organ for three months. It was a challenge for me in the beginning.

I played with Sam Lay, Jimmy Reed, Big Walter Horton, Big Moose Walker, and all those guys.

I heard Mr. Wild Bill Davis. I heard him play in 1930 and he told me that it would take me fifteen years just to learn the pedals, the pedals of the organ and I got mad.

Ninety-five percent of my audience was white.

My mom would have liked it that I patterned myself more after Jimmy Reed.

People like the idea of the trio and so I did mostly trio.

I played with Eddie Taylor’s son, Tim Taylor and Carey Bells son Lurie Bell.

My boys told me they’d rather play than practice.

And then when I found my sound, it took me two and a half weeks to find my sound and when I did I pulled out all the stops, all the stops I could find.

My first recording, a guy came down to Philadelphia and heard me play and he introduced me to Alfred Lion.