George "Harmonica" Smith

Biography

Allen GEORGE “Harmonica” SMITH (1924.04.22/West Helena, AK – 1983.10.02/Los Angeles, CA)’s family moved to Cairo, IL soon afterward where he was raised. He was taught the harmonica by his mother when he four. As a teenager, he began traveling in the South, and eventually wound up playing fish fries and picnics in the Mississippi Delta with Earley Woods’ country band. George played at local parties, juke joints and in the streets. In 1941 he moved to Rock Island, Illinois with his mother for a f...

Allen GEORGE “Harmonica” SMITH (1924.04.22/West Helena, AK – 1983.10.02/Los Angeles, CA)’s family moved to Cairo, IL soon afterward where he was raised. He was taught the harmonica by his mother when he four. As a teenager, he began traveling in the South, and eventually wound up playing fish fries and picnics in the Mississippi Delta with Earley Woods’ country band. George played at local parties, juke joints and in the streets.

In 1941 he moved to Rock Island, Illinois with his mother for a few years, mostly working outside of music, and then went back to Mississippi, where he made his living playing music and working as a projectionist in a movie theater in Ita Bena. It was there that he began to experiment with playing the harmonica amplified through the sound system of the film projector.

In 1949 Smith moved to Chicago to pursue his music, and began working with Otis Rush and the Myers Bothers. He began playing professionally in 1951. He had become close with Little Walter. George was recruited to join Muddy Waters’ band in 1954, making his presence between the short-lived Henry Strong and James Cotton, after Henry Strong – Walter’s replacement in the Muddy Waters band – was stabbed to death by a jealous girlfriend. Smith got the harmonica chair in the world’s greatest blues band. It didn’t last, though. Perhaps there were stylistic differences, or maybe Smith was not content to be a sideman-no really knows. But by 1954 Smith was steadily employed in the Orchid Room in Kansas City, where the swingy music was more to his taste than Muddy’s electrified Delta blues.

The following year he was noticed there by Joe Bihari of Modern Records and signed to the label. Smith then recorded some sides which are now classics, including “Blues in the Dark” and “Telephone Blues.”
He used octaves extensively to get the sound of a horn section, and was a master of amplified tone shadings. Along with this he also had a preference for playing just behind the beat, which gave his music the swinging sound which later earned him the title of the Father of West Coast Swing. Third position on chromatic and diatonic harmonica has been done before, but nothing like this. Little Walter, the unofficial king of blues harmonica, had played third position on chromatic and diatonic harmonica, but his techniques were different. George made full use of the harmonica’s tuning by his incorporation of the use of playing “octaves”, especially on the chromatic.

George took his blues influences and met them with his other harmonica influences (he often cited Larry Adler as his favorite) and ran with it until he developed his own approach to tone and phrasing. Besides his classic RPM sides “Blues In The Dark”, “Oopin’ Doopin’ Doopin’” and “Down in New Orleans”, other chromatic features of his include “Hawaiian Eye”, “Blue Fog” and “Soul Feet”. His mastery of the chromatic harmonica influenced every blues player that has picked up the instrument since, either directly or indirectly, arguably even more so than Little Walter’s chromatic technique.

In 1955 he toured with pianist Champion Jack Dupree and Little Willie John, and after some recording for Bihari, eventually settled in Los Angeles. He was to stay there for the rest of his life. Established in the city, he recorded again for the Modern label, this time with a horn section.
By then rock and roll was starting to erode sales of blues records, and Smith, now a man with a growing family, was dropped by Modern. He hustled as best he could, recording for any label that would take him and playing the local clubs. Smith also adopted Rice Miller’s old trick of identity theft by billing himself under a variety stage names to get bigger crowds at gigs, including Little Walter and Big Walter. It proved a shortsighted choice; establishing a reputation under his real name would now be difficult.

When James Cotton left Muddy Water’s band in 1966, Smith got his old gig back and moved to Chicago to play with Waters. As before, it didn’t last, and Smith went back to Los Angeles. But he stayed friends with Muddy, and when Little Walter died two years later, Muddy’s band backed Smith on his highly regarded Tribute to Little Walter album.

He eventually made the decision to leave Chicago, and spent much of his adult life on the West Coast of America. At about this time blues, Smith met the young Rod Piazza, and they launched the Southside Blues Band, which toured with Big Mama Thorton and also recorded the album “..Of the Blues.” He also appeared on her album Jail (1975).

In 1970 British producer Mike Vernon met the band, signed them to a European tour, and changed their name to Bacon Fat. They recorded a couple of albums for Vernon, but Smith still could not import his overseas success to Los Angeles and the group continued to struggle at home. The decade also saw a decline in his health as a heart condition worsened. On the brighter side, he began to teach future harp great William Clarke the chromatic harmonica, and two began gigging together. For the remainder of his life, George continued to perform with his band, as a sideman, or with one of his protégés, and made some great recordings even in the 70’s and 80’s.

Boogie’n With George, Smith’s final recordings, were made with Piazza in 1982, and he died in October of 1983. Partly by luck, and partly by his own doing, he was underappreciated for many years, but recent reissues of his work will hopefully gain him his rightful place in the blues harp Pantheon.His influence can still be heard in the playing of the top harp players on the contemporary scene, such as Rod Piazza, Kim Wilson, Rick Estrin, Paul deLay and Mark Hummel. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.