Big Ken Smith
Big Ken Smith
Similar artists via Last.fm
Curtis Salgado & Alan Hager
About Big Ken Smith
The blues meet Southern rock head-on in the feisty music of "Big" Ken Smith. Think chitlins and pecan pie, Gregg Allman gettin' fraternal with Son Seals, or a big ribs platter washed down with moonshine. It's a tough sound, full of urban grit and backwoods mud, hard-won wisdom and cheerful resilience. Bassist and songwriter Ken Smith comes by it honestly. He's been wallowing in music ever since his earliest days in Cookeville, Tennessee. "My dad was a bluesman," Smith explains. "He was the kind of guy who would make up songs about what happened to him that day. He played guitar - laid it across his lap and played it in open key tunings. He'd play it with his knife." "And both of my brothers were bluegrass musicians - Bobby Smith and Dallas Smith. We were all in a band together as kids called The Boys from Shiloh, which also featured the great fiddler Vassar Clements. Bobby died, but a version of that bluegrass band's still going." "Now my mom, fried chicken was her specialty. Her first cousin was Lester Flatt. I just saw him this morning. on a re-run of The Beverly Hillbillies. It all kinda connects, "Smith laughs." During his 15-year stint as band leader for country star Bobby Bare, Ken traveled all over the world. "Then I've also recorded with the Big Dawgs group. I toured Europe with them, plus toured there with my own Ken Smith Band." One of Smith's prime songwriting inspirations became his frequent co-writer - Don Nix, who penned such blues-rock classics as "Going Down," and "Same Old Blues. Another of Smith's frequent collaborators from his Nashville days is Gary Talley. "He's the original lead guitarist for the Box Tops. Smith's producer on Hometown Homesick Blues, Fred James, is a songwriting hero himself. James has also produced sessions for everybody from Homesick James to Tommy Tutone. A groovy bassist and growling lead singer, Smith is a regular guy with prodigious talents. He's the kind of fella you'd love to tip a few beers with. No pretensions, no bullshit, no abrasive ego, just quiet self-confidence., Smith is a gent who might now sell his songs to the current kings of the blues-rock world. He has the hooks, the punchlines, the stick-to-your-ribs grooves, and the pedigreed cast of characters to make Hometown Homesick Blues into a first class songwriter's calling card. "This is straight-ahead Southern roadhouse blues …Smith's music may not be fancy, but it certainly is honest." Dirty Linen "Bassist Smith's growling vocals are the perfect match for his sometimes funky, always rockin' arrangements." Blues Access
Taken from Last.fm
44 listeners · 185 plays via Last.fm