Happy Birthday Little Smokey Smothers
Peter Chase
Little Smokey Smothers. He is 71 today.
From his liner notes:
Albert “Little Smokey” Smothers was born on January 2, 1939, in Tchula,
Mississippi, and began playing guitar at 15. Two years later, Smothers moved
to Chicago and shortly after landed gigs with Arthur “Big Boy” Spires,
Magic Sam, Otis Rush and pianist “Lazy” Bill Lucas. In 1958, he joined Howlin’
Wolf and can be heard on Wolf classics such as I’ve Been Abused, Howlin’
For My Darlin’ and Mr. Airplane Man. Three years later, he formed Little
Smokey Smothers and the Pipeplayers and, in Smothers’ words, “played nearly
everything on the jukebox,” at the South Side’s Blue Flame, the Playhouse and
Pepper’s Lounge.
It was around this time that Smothers met Bishop. The two became fast
friends. “He was a young kid, trying to learn how to play,” recalls Smothers. “
But he really wanted to learn. I thought he was something special because
every time I would give him a note to play, he’d come back tomorrow, he’d be
on it—that note. The next thing I know, he was really playing.”
After Bishop hooked up with the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Smothers
almost completely gave up music and took construction jobs to make money. Once
his children matured, he rejoined the music scene with the Legendary Blues
Band in the 1980s and has been regularly gigging ever since. In 1993, Bishop
guested on Smothers’ very first album, Bossman!, on the Dutch Black Magic
label. Open heart surgery sidelined Smothers for a spell in ‘95, but a year
later, he released Second Time Around on the German Crosscut label.
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