Imagine flying to Europe to share stages with Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf, then clocking in at dawn at a Chicago folding box factory. That was the life of Byther Smith, born in Monticello, Mississippi in April 1932, orphaned young and raised by his aunt and uncle on gospel music. As a teenager he moved to Arizona to work cattle ranches and construction, learned double bass from country and western farmhands, and nearly became a boxer before his aunt bought him an electric bass to keep him out of the ring.

This deep dive follows Smith’s mid-1950s move to Chicago with his wife Etta Mae, where his cousin J.B. Lenoir taught him guitar and he learned from Robert Lockwood Jr. and Hubert Sumlin. He became rhythm guitarist for Otis Rush, played behind Muddy Waters and Jimmy Reed, spent five grueling years in the house band at Theresa’s Tavern backing Junior Wells, toured with Big Mama Thornton and George Harmonica Smith, and launched a late solo career with Tell Me How You Like It and Addressing the Nation with the Blues, followed by albums on Delmark, Bullseye, and Black and Tan. Through all of it he worked 25 years at the Economy Folding Box Company until retiring in 1995, then toured until 2015 and died in Chicago in September 2021 at 89.

• How a walking bass line learned in an Arizona country band laid his rhythmic foundation
• Why the boxer’s discipline of rhythm and anticipation translated directly to holding down the pocket
• What the house band ego means and why Theresa’s Tavern was an endurance test
• How the assembly line grind became embedded in the aesthetic of his blues
• Delmark’s Bob Koester on the rare mellowness Smith shared only with B.B. King