NOTE: You can see Small’s performance about the 23-minute mark of the video.
Staff reports (updated) | As rains pummeling South Carolina Friday forced the state to drink large amounts of water, Columbia bluesman Drink Small performed his classic music at the NEA National Heritage Fellowship Concert honoring him in Washington, D.C.
“He taught himself to play guitar, didn’t need anyone to show him how, and I daresay getting to know Drink Small this week, he’s the one who can show us all a thing or two,” said emcee Marco Werman, host of Public Radio International and BBC’s The World radio news show.
Honored with 10 others as a National Heritage fellow, Small “has preserved the heritage of his community in South Carolina and has traveled around the country and abroad to share his unique blues styling and his deep bass voice,” according to the NEA. “His style is drawn from the Piedmont blues tradition but also includes gospel, rhythm and blues, boogie-woogie, and Delta and Chicago style of blues.”
Werman told Statehouse Report that Small had fun leading up to the Friday performance.
“During rehearsals at George Washington University’s Lisner Auditorium, he’d sit quietly in the green room, his diminishing sight leaving me the impression that he was staring into space, and then from seemingly nowhere, he’d wheel out a thunderous one-liner: ‘I’ve got a big mouth and I’m from the South!’ or ‘I went from the workhouse to the White House,’ referring to a performance he once gave in Washington.
“Drink Small was the life of this party.”
- You can read more about the honor in this June story from the S.C. Arts Hub.
- You can watch Small’s performance of “Never too late to do right, always too soon to do wrong” at the 23-minute mark of this video.
We Can Do Better, South Carolina!