Willie "The Lion" Smith

Willie "The Lion" Smith

William Henry Joseph Bonaparte Bertholoff Smith (23 November 1893 – 18 April 1973), a.k.a. "The Lion", was an American jazz pianist and one of the masters of the stride style, usually grouped with James P. Johnson and Thomas "Fats" Waller as the three greatest practitioners of the genre from its Golden Age, c. 1920–1943.

Read more about Willie "The Lion" Smith:  Early Life, Music Career, Personal Life, Legacy, Recordings

Famous quotes containing the words lion and/or smith:

    The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them.
    Bible: Hebrew Isaiah, 11:6.

    If you wish to make a man look noble, your best course is to kill him. What superiority he may have inherited from his race, what superiority nature may have personally gifted him with, comes out in death.
    —Alexander Smith (1830–1867)