Smokey Wilson remains one of America's most precious and irreplaceable treasures, the "Bluesman". Born in Mississippi in 1936, Robert Lee "Smokey" Wilson learned the blues at the feet of legends Elmore James, Jimmy Reed, Howlin' Wolf and B.B. King. As a child, Smokey's burning desire to play the blues had to be satisfied on a homemade broom handle and bailing wire guitar until his mother bought him his first acoustic at thirteen. He would soon be known as "Mississippi Smokey" in and around his hometown of Glen Allan. Nearby Greenville was a hotbed of blues activity and spawned a new generation of bluesmen that carry on the tradition today. Artists such as Little Milton, Frank Frost, Sam Carr, Big Jack Johnson, along with Smokey, were nurtured in the juke joints around Greenville. Smokey played drums and bass in his older brother's band until he could outplay his sibling on guitar. The band was then renamed "Little Robert and the Soul Searchers" and toured Southern juke joints with Roosevelt "Booba" Barnes on harmonica. After the death of his mother in 1970, Smokey went west to Los Angeles where the blues scene was still burgeoning. He soon opened the Pioneer Club just outside Watts and Smokey recalls with pride that he kept it packed for twenty years. Regularly featured guests included Big Joe Turner, Pee Wee Crayton, Shakey Jake, Big Mama Thornton, Percy Mayfield, Johnny Dyer, Albert Collins, and George "Harmonica" Smith. The Pioneer Club also provided a proving ground for