Drink Small (his real name)[2][3] was born in Bishopville, South Carolina[1] into a family of singers and musicians,[4] who were also sharecroppers working in cotton fields.
[3] At the age of eight, he was thrown from and caught under the moving wheel of a mule-drawn wagon and suffered a severe back injury.
He wore a makeshift body cast for weeks, which ended his days picking cotton[5] and helped turn him towards his musical path by listening to the radio and learning to play the songs on the guitar.
[11] Small had eclectic musical influences, including Tennessee Ernie Ford, Merle Travis, John Lee Hooker, Fats Domino[12] and the blues guitarist and singer Blind Boy Fuller.
[1][12] With a mastery of multiple styles of music, a basso profondo blues voice, and a charismatic stage presence that includes telling bawdy stories and jokes onstage, in the 1960s he began to gain a following with college students in the Carolinas.
[14] He recorded dirty blues tracks, such as "Tittie Man" and "Baby, Leave Your Panties Home",[15] and more righteous songs, such as "The Lord Been Good to Me".
[8] He was the opening act for Little Milton, Bobby "Blue" Bland, and Koko Taylor, and was once on the same bill as Furry Lewis and Johnny Shines.
In 2009, Small was the closing act of the first Pee Dee Blues Bash, held in Florence, South Carolina.
[17] As of 2015, he was featured weekly on Blues Moon Radio, broadcast on WUSC-FM from Columbia, South Carolina.
[5] Although he toured across the U.S. and in Europe, Small has a fear of flying and preferred to perform close to home, where he cared for his mother.