“Otis “Big Smokey” Smothers (March 21, 1929 – July 23, 1993) was a Chicago blues guitarist and singer. He was a member of Howlin’ Wolf‘s backing band and worked with Muddy Waters, Jimmy Rogers, Bo Diddley, Ike Turner, J. T. Brown, Freddie King, Little Johnny Jones, Little Walter, and Willie Dixon. His younger brother, Abe (born Albert, January 2, 1939 – November 20, 2010), was the bluesman Little Smokey Smothers, with whom he is sometimes confused. … Smothers secured a recording contract with Federal Records in August 1960. His album Smokey Smothers Sings the Backporch Blues, produced by Sonny Thompson, with Freddie King on lead guitar on some tracks, was released in 1962. … Smothers helped to form the Muddy Waters Junior Band in the late 1950s, as a tribute to Waters. When Waters was on the road, the band would hold down his regular residency gigs in Chicago, performing Waters’s songs and serving as a training ground for potential future members of Waters’s band, which both Smothers and fellow Junior Band member George ‘Mojo’ Buford eventually joined. …”
Wikipedia
Discogs (Video)
YouTube: Otis Big Smokey Smothers – 1962 – Sings The Backporch Blues
“The father of ‘swamp blue’ (that distinctive down-home-but-echo-laden-electric blues from Louisiana). Lightnin’ Slim‘s songs boast lazy, indolent vocals-.-spidery, spooky guitar work (often played on the guitar’s bass strings)-.-a compelling, chugging rhythm-.-and a drum sound that shifts skillfully from light percussion to a sledgehammer blues beat. More than any other Louisiana blues artist, Slim kept his ear open in the 1950s to the sounds going on ‘up north’, particularly those by Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf and Sonny Boy Williamson on the Chicago blues scene (who were all, of course, originally from the South).These sides recorded for the Excello label in the 1950s and 1960s, include single releases, album tracks, alternate takes of old favourites and previously unissued sides (I Gonna Leave, Driftin Blues and the last three of the afore-mentioned alternate takes). … This series of Lightnin’ Slim CDs includes one take, occasionally two, of every Slim recording known to have been sent to Excello. These takes include all the single masters, many of which are not widely known to today’s blues listeners. …”
Ace Records (Audio)
Wikipedia
Discogs (Video)
1960s: Days of Rage
1960s: Days of Rage 