Derek Smalls

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Harry Shearer as "Derek Smalls"
Harry Shearer as "Derek Smalls"

Derek Smalls (played by Harry Shearer) is the bass player for mock rock group Spinal Tap. He co-starred in the hit spoof rockumentary This is Spinal Tap with guitarists Nigel Tufnel (Christopher Guest) and David St. Hubbins (Michael McKean), as well as with a plethora of drummers and keyboardists. He has one solo album, Its a Smalls World.

Derek grew up in Nilford, England and was the son of Donald "Duff" Smalls, who ran a marginally successful telephone sanitization business, "Sani-Fone". He joined Spinal Tap in 1967 after the departure of bassist Ronnie Pudding.

Smalls played killer #1 in Marco Zamboni's Roma '79. He is also a prize-winning gardener, having developed and patented a totally black rose, the Death by Midnight. He was also part of the Christian rock band Lambsblood (which played the "Monsters of Jesus" festival) and the star of a series of comical Belgian television commercials for the snack food Floop. After the band's final breakup in 1992, Derek became employed as a "floater" in an elementary school, with such duties as crossing guard and straightening library books.

The name Derek Smalls appears to come from the cover of the Jethro Tull album Thick as a Brick. The newspaper format of this album cover featured satirical classified ads including an ad for a 4' divan bed, and the offer of a "Dwarf for Rent" both of which instructed the reader to "Contact Derek Small."



Advanced Search
Included Web Search Engines


Safe Search

close

Top Matching Results

Occasionally Search.com will highlight specialized results that are based on the context of your query. Examples of specialized results include specific links to news, images, or video.

Top Matching Results may highlight information from other Search.com pages, content from the CNET Network of sites, or third party content. The listings are based purely on relevance. Search.com does not receive payment for listings in this section but our partners that provide this data may get paid for listing these products.

Sponsored Links

This section contains paid listings which have been purchased by companies that want to have their sites appear for specific search terms and related content. These listings are administered, sorted and maintained by a third party and are not endorsed by Search.com.

Search Results

Search.com sends your search query to several search engines at one time and integrates the results into one list which has been sorted by relevance using Search.com's proprietary algorithm. You can customize the list of search engines included in your metasearch from the preferences.

The search engines that are used in your metasearch may allow companies to pay to have their Web sites included within the results. To view the Paid Inclusion policy for a specific search engine, please visit their Web site. Search.com does not accept payment or share revenue with any search engine partner for listings in this section.