BLACK SOCIAL HISTORY : AFRICAN AMERICAN " WILL "BIG EYES" SMITH " THE LONG TIME DRUMMER WITH MUDDY WATER BAND , IF NOT ONE OF THE BEST DRUMMERS EVER : GOES INTO THE " HALL OF BLACK GENIUS "

                                 BLACK                       SOCIAL                   HISTORY                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             The longtime drummer with the Muddy Waters Band, blues man 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 SmithClifton 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 High tone Records.

 taught himself harmonica and drums, and with harpist