Along with Fats Waller and James P. Johnson, Willie “The Lion” Smith was one of
the great stride-style pianists of the golden age of jazz. Born William Henry
Joseph Bonaparte Bertholf in 1893 to a Jewish father and an African-American
mother, Smith (surname added later) grew up in Newark, New Jersey, and nurtured
a passion for the piano from his early childhood. A tour of duty in World War I
with the Harlem Hellfighters interrupted his early career, but he displayed
courage at such a level that he was dubbed “The Lion,” a nickname that would
follow him the rest of his life.
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