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

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• Jimmy Smith:

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

• Jimmy Smith:

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

• Jimmy Smith:

  Ninety-five percent of my audience was white.

• Jimmy Smith:

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

• Jimmy Smith:

  I just came from Aspen, Colorado and they had fifteen kids I played for and they all played horns.

• Jimmy Smith:

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

• Jimmy Smith:

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

• Jimmy Smith:

  Yeah, you know everybody has somebody that they patterned themselves after.

• Jimmy Smith:

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

• Jimmy Smith:

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