Babatunde 'Tunde' Williams was born in Nigeria, in 1943. His family was from Abeokuta, but his father was employed by the United Africa Company in the middle belt city of Makurdi, where Tunde was born in 1943. He attended primary school at Gboko Elementary School in the nearby town of Gboko, and later attended Katsina-Ala Middle School in the northern town of Katsina. Unbeknownst to most people, Tunde’s first instrument was percussion, and his earliest professional experience was as a conga, bongo, and traps player for various highlife bands in the early 1960s. By 1965 he was playing with the highlife band of Olu McFoy, and he later joined Atomic Eight, a highlife and copyright band from Aba in eastern Nigeria. It was in Atomic Eight that he befriended the bandleader Raymond Baba, a multi-instrumentalist who was proficient on both brass and woodwinds. Inspired by Baba’s example, Tunde switched from percussion to trumpet shortly thereafter, with Baba as his first teacher. He also cites Louis Armstrong and Miles Davis as formative influences on the instrument. Tunde joined Koola Lobitos as a trumpeter in late 1967, and remained with Fela Kuti's band through 1978, when he and several other bandmembers left the group acrimoniously following the Berlin Jazz Festival in September of that year. In Afrika 70, he was the most consistent soloist, and his trumpet improvisations graced virtually of the band’s 1970s recordings. The tracks for Mr. Big Mouth had been recorded in 1975, but by the time they were released in 1977, Fela was engaged in a bitter battle with the original label, Decca Records. As a result, many of Afrika 70’s Decca releases from 1977-8 fell through the proverbial cracks, and Mr. Big Mouth was unfortunately one of them. Although it is a great album, it was given little promotion and as a result, is known only to the most committed Afrobeat aficionados, even in Nigeria.