Compilation produced by
Andrew Galloway and Sandra B. Tooze

Compilation mastered by
Andy Krehm at Silverbirch Productions

Photography by Gary Collver
Design by Amy Occhipinti

After a long battle with cancer claimed the life of harp legend Malcolm “Little Mack” Simmons on October 24, 2000, at his South Side Chicago home, blues music lost not only a brilliant innovator but another link to its storied past.

Born January 25, 1933, in Twist, Arkansas, Mack faced adversity early with the death of his father just ten days after his own birth. He found an escape from the drudgery of growing up poor when he discovered his passion for the harmonica, an interest he shared with childhood friend James Cotton. Together they would ditch school, seek out sanctuary under a bridge and let loose on the latest Sonny Boy Williamson (Rice Miller) licks they were trying to master.

Married at fifteen, Mack left Twist for St. Louis in hot pursuit of his wife and young son when the marriage failed. He began to realize his musical aspirations when a chance meeting with Robert Nighthawk led to his first club gig backing the slide master. It was also in the Gateway City where Mack met his second wife, singer songwriter Georgia Mae Hinton. Together they migrated to Chicago, where Georgia’s first cousin Little Walter Jacobs lived.

Mack hung out in dozens of South Side clubs, soaking up every note Little Walter played. “He was tops in my book,the best there was in my time,” Mack often told me. In 1955, after working as a butcher and longshoreman, Little Mack formed his own band with Detroit Junior on keyboards, bassman Little Bobby Anderson, guitarist Eddy King and drummer Robert Whitehead and snagged the coveted house-band spot at Cadillac Baby’s club. Soon after, Little Mack made his recording debut on Cadillac Baby’s Bea and Baby label with “Come Back To Me.”

The disc sold well locally, and Mack was reunited with James Cotton on the minor masterpiece “Jumpin’ At Cadillac’s,” also on the Bea and Baby imprint. Throughout the late 1950s and early 1960s, Little Mack waxed sides for a multitude of local labels, including C.J., Palos, Dud, Pacer and New Breed. Chess also released two Willie Dixon–produced 45s on Little Mack. On the strength of these records, Mack gigged steadily in South and West Side clubs during this golden age of Chicago blues. He shared the stage with fellow Windy City notables Magic Sam, Jimmy Reed, Freddie King, J.B. Lenoir, Sunnyland Slim, Junior Wells and Howlin’ Wolf in such Chicago landmarks as Theresa’s, Sylvios, the Blue Flame and Pepper’s Lounge, which Mack would eventually own.

When a mid-sixties bust for a miniscule amount of reefer netted him a 36-month prison sentence, Mack’s ascent as one of the bright young lights of Chicago blues was put on hold (his outlaw years are chronicled in greater depth in my liner notes to The P.M./Simmons Collection). Upon his release, he returned to the blues circuit and purchased the Club Zodiac at 2235 South Cottage Grove. Mack transformed the second storey into the Simmons Recording Studio with the acquisition of a $60,000 24-track recorder and launched the P.M. and Simmons record labels. In addition to his own numerous releases, he recorded blues diva Arelean Brown’s only LP, Blues In The Loop, and in 1977 the first album by Eddie Shaw and the Wolfgang, Have Blues Will Travel. Syl Johnson, Otis Clay and Sunnyland Slim also recorded at Simmons. Mack assembled a top-flight band, which included guitarist Lonnie Brooks, to back him on record and in the club downstairs. Mack’s recordings received extensive airplay on Chicago radio during the 1970s, particularly from Pervis Spann on WVON. During the mid-’70s Mack also toured Europe backed by the surviving members of Little Walter’s band. They were extremely well received, and while in France, Mack recorded an LP for the Black & Blue label.

Mack’s arrest for drug trafficking on August 12, 1982, led to the end of his entertainment empire, and although he was found guilty, he was given a suspended sentence. He retreated into gospel music and the church for the remainder of the 1980s. As the 1990s dawned, Mack began a gradual return to the blues, starting with gigs at the Delta Fish Market. He recorded CDs for the Wolf and St.George labels and began playing weekly at Rosa’s, a West Side club.

It was through his weekly jam at Rosa’s that Mack first came to the attention of Electro-Fi. A long-time blues aficionado and avid record collector, I felt by 1995 that the time was right to launch a label dedicated to the music I love. In October 1996 we began work on Little Mack Is Back. The CD and label were both successfully launched at a standing-room-only gig in Toronto on Mack’s sixty-fourth birthday, January 25, 1997.

We followed that up with the February 1998 release of Somewhere On Down The Line, this time showcasing Mack in an acoustic setting. The overwhelmingly positive response to this disc helped garner him a 1999 Living Blues Award nomination in the category of Most Outstanding Blues Musician (Harmonica).

Mack had long hoped to see his 1970s P.M. and Simmons records reissued on CD, so after creative consultation with him, Electro-Fi released The P.M./Simmons Collection in 1999, featuring the material of which he was most proud.

Mack was in fine form for his long-awaited appearance at the Chicago Blues Festival in June 2000, despite his eighteen-month bout with colon cancer. For several years he had gigged on the sidewalk outside the festival, often drawing larger crowds than some of the acts inside, but being booked to appear at the Front Porch stage as part of the Howlin’ Wolf Tribute meant a lot to him. A sharp-dressed Mack delivered a memorable, soul-stirring performance that completely won over the large audience.

With the release of this recording, we at Electro-Fi are honored to preserve and present to you the musical legacy of a true original of Chicago blues—Malcolm “Little Mack” Simmons.

— Andrew Galloway

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