Talk:Willie "the Lion" Smith

message: * of "Finger Buster" by Willie The Lion Smith, a long-unreleased piano solo from one of the giants of stride
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as it stands, there seems to be something missing and I do not know how to fix it. If anyone knows how to do so, please return it to article. Thanx. --Technopat 11:56, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Samples

message: I made a special mention of Willie Smith's Commodore solo session of Jan 10, 1939.  It is often cited, in one way or another, as the single more important recording session of his career.  This is not really a controversial claim.  Every online review I've found of his work says as much. And most jazz anthologies which include his work pick recordings or at least compositions recorded at this session.  (I can't even find any reviews that contradict this viewpoint.)  So I think it may be helpful to those who want to a place to start.  I included one reference, which can be found by googling that book on the web, but I am not so clear on the correct formatting of citations.  Perhaps someone can improve this formatting, and maybe even throw in a couple of other citations saying the same thing.
This article could be improved by giving some more attention to "Echoes of Spring," his most famous composition.
Sojambi Pinola (talk) 19:03, 19 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Citation formatting, Jan 10, 1939 session 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just added archive links to  on Willie "The Lion" Smith. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add  after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add  to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/20090313011848/http://www.njn.net:80/artsculture/williethelion/ to http://www.njn.net/artsculture/williethelion/
When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.
Cheers. —cyberbot IITalk to my owner:Online 21:23, 8 September 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified 

message: I removed the part of the sentence that said that Blanche Merrill was a songwriter.  I'm currently writing an article on that Blanche Merrill - but there are places that indicate Smith's wife was a different Merrill - who was still playing piano in her 60s.  The songwriter Blanche Merrill would have been 20 in 1915 and was still living with her mother until the 1920s.  Not the same person. - kosboot (talk) 20:56, 22 May 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: I've now completed the article on the songwriter Blanche Merrill.  Definitely not the same person. - kosboot (talk) 15:10, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Two Blanche Merrills 

message: Smith certainly identified as a Jewish man, that's for sure, but was his estranged father actually Jewish? The surname "Bertholf" comes from Dutch origin, certainly not a Jewish surname and tracing Frank Bertholf's family back, it's pretty much a Dutch colonial family with exclusively Christian faith. Maybe Willie Smith identified as Jewish because he grew up in an environment with lots of Jewish neighbors and friends, so he was culturally absorbed. JakeG16777216 (talk) 05:37, 6 September 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Is Smith Ethnically Jewish? 

message: Both the article page and talk page was redirected from "The Lion" to "the Lion" citing MOS:THENICKNAME. This page has been long standing for 20 years under this name as "The Lion" since this is how Smith has been referred to in print, media, reviews, album covers, etc for decades. This was not a "nickname" for Smith but a "stage name" that was written as such. Even his autographs reveal a capital "T". I have never seen an album cover or sheet music or the like that read: "the Lion". This move should not have happened. No google search reveals Willie "the Lion" Smith. His correct name / title was and is: Willie "The Lion" Smith. Maineartists (talk) 17:08, 9 January 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi there. Everything you describe here is covered under MOS:THENICKNAME:  That is the Wikipedia style. Popcornfud (talk) 17:37, 11 January 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes. We all know that. Therein lies the problem. First: MOS is a "guideline". Not policy. "It is a generally accepted standard that editors should attempt to follow, though it is best treated with common sense," Second: If THENICKNAME is the only defense, then you have a lot of editing to do on WP when it comes to musicians; as there are currently numerous articles that use "The" instead of "the". I flipped through at least a dozen before writing this. The tiny little one-line MOS guideline is not effective and does not take into consideration each individual factor and should be either re-written or at the very least allow articles to be edited accordingly for the subject individually. The term "or other alias" is too broad an interpretation for those instituting this. Not one glove fits all here. I see you quickly changed the long-standing "The Boss" over at Bruce Springsteen as well. As a stagename Springsteen is not "the Boss" as in Bruce the "Boss" Springsteen. He is Bruce "The Boss" Springsteen. "The Boss" is the title. He is called as such and written as such. To read: 'The record company signed "the Boss" to a deal' is beyond comprehension and not found in the real world. And neither is Willie "the Lion" Smith. Aretha Franklin was the "Queen of Soul". That I can understand. But the quotes are not around "the"; it is around the title. It would be ridiculous to write: Aretha Franklin, "the Queen of Soul". She's Aretha Franklin, the "Queen of Soul"; and it's Willie "The Lion" Smith. WP:MOS is confusing the two. Recordings: , , , Media: , , , Books: , , just to present a few. All of these print "The Lion" except WP. Maineartists (talk) 21:45, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

text: "Often"? The very first search rendered "The". "Music on My Mind" does not reveal "the"; which four of the titles on the search reveal as the same book. Your defense is moot. There are simply far too many more instances of "The" than "the" when referring to Smith throughout history; and when / if "the" is present it is not because it is "correct". The "guideline" is not found anywhere except WP and does not / should not apply in all cases; certainly not apply here. Smith is not Andre the Giant. Maineartists (talk) 12:59, 16 January 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: , , , , ,  and  are certainly not the same works. Cinderella157 (talk) 22:32, 16 January 2024 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, all I can say is: hats off to you for your incredible sleuthing. Well done. And once again, consensus wins the day. The "the"s have it. Maineartists (talk) 14:54, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

text: Lowercase per Cinderella. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 01:07, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

text: Seems consistent with THENICKNAME, and source usage is mixed  for this case and similar ones, e.g. . Capitalization is common, but does not meet the "consistently capitalized in independent, reliable sources" standard of MOS:CAPS. If Nicmart or whoever wishes the THENICKNAME guideline provision said the opposite of what it does, or didn't exist, they know how to do an RfC at WT:MOSBIO. However, flipping THENICKNAME to be opposite would be creating a novel exception to the general MOS:CAPS rule, and one that is hard to justify with inconsistent source usage (i.e., other publishers simply treat this as a style matter subject to their own house-style rules, not as a proper-name construction that  be capitalized like The Hague), so the odds of such an RfC being successful seem very low to me.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  21:46, 25 January 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Lion