Jimmy Smith

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

“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.”

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

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

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

“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.”

“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 boys told me they'd rather play than practice.”

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

“Ninety-five percent of my audience was white.”

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

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

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

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

“I played with Eddie Taylor's son, Tim Taylor and Carey Bells son Lurie Bell.”