RIP Arthur "Guitar Boogie" Smith

[tree]

Arthur Smith passed away yesterday.

I grew up in eastern NC and can't remember if Carolina Calling was carried on any of the stations east of Raleigh, but I definitely remember the Arthur Smith show.

Condolences to his family, friends and fans.

[Charley wild]

I remember his TV show back in 1962 when I was working around the Charlotte area. What a great talent! I was familiar with him before I got there from an EP my mom bought me years earlier. It had the "Guitar Boogie" on it, the electric version. I have always had the greatest admiration for him. RIP Arthur.

[allenhopkins]

Comprehensive Charlotte Observer article.

Perhaps best known for Feudin' Banjos, originally recorded with Smith on tenor banjo and Don Reno on 5-string, then covered by the Dillards et. al., and most famously by Eric Weissberg and Steve Mandel (as Dueling Banjos) for the Deliverance soundtrack.

The record company and movie studio then moved with extreme capitalist precision to minimize the author's and musicians' income, first by acting as if the song was "public domain." Smith and his lawyers convinced a court otherwise, and Smith used to point to a picture of a yacht on his studio wall and say, "that's thanks to Warner Brothers."

Warner also took an earlier Weissberg album, New Dimensions In Banjo and Bluegrass, added Dueling Banjos to it, and re-released it, thus preventing Weissberg from realizing the additional money he would have made from a new LP.

A very important figure in traditional country music, and one whose recording studio hosted musicians from Johnny Cash to Pat Boone, Lester Flatt, Ronnie Millsap and the Statler Brothers -- not to mention Billy Graham, and (yes!) James Brown, who cut Papa's Got A Brand New Bag there.

[Charles E.]

He could play the heck out of the mandolin too......

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLDLedtPoxU

[Charles E.]

Hope this works.

[journeybear]

He could play the heck out of the mandolin too......

Yes, he could. This is one of my all-time video clips, just because of the music, and the very cool juke box.



I have fond memories of this tune. learning it off the 45 (it was the B-side of "Guitar Boogie," natch), to be a feature for me in my old jug band. Many, many repeats, but I got there. It may be mostly a collection of fairly standard riffs, but they are actually arranged very nicely, with a good idea of how to build and then release. Plus there is that round near the end that sounds improvised, but may actually have been worked out carefully and just sounds a bit looser. Anyway, It's a gem. And it has always been fun to play this. Thank you Arthur Smith for this and many other fine moments.

[journeybear]

I went out to St. Louis for a few days last week for a holiday family get-together. Having recently learned some things about Arthur Smith due to involvement on another thread, including his time spent in Charlotte during his life and burial thereafterward, I fit a visit to his grave into my schedule for my flight out of the airport there. I'd learned his tombstone was in the shape of an obelisk, and it was a small cemetery, so finding it was easy. I'm glad I went, because lichens had grown up over its face, and I was able to clean it off. I was following in Geoff Muldaur's footsteps, who took the time once to find Blind Lemon Jefferson's grave, buy a broom, and sweep it off. That was in response to his wishes expressed in his song, "See That My Grave Is Kept Clean." I had some ammonia and a scrub brush on board, so this was easily done.

[journeybear]

I did want to mention that the inscriptions on the tombstone will be much more legible when the images are magnified. Six songs are mentioned, "Guitar Boogie" on top, then "Duelling Banjos." Somehow, "Mandolin Boogie" was overlooked. Oh, and of course I'm wearing my Mandolin Café hat.

Some of the following info may be presented in the destinations associated with the links previously posted here. But it's better to provide info in the forum rather than make it necessary for readers to follow such links, which may not be viable after the elapsed time, nearly nine years. So ...

Among his many accomplishments, Arthur Smith had the first country music television show to be syndicated nationally, running for 32 years. He also founded the first recording studio in the Southeast. And in addition to "Mandolin Boogie" (and of course, his namesake "Guitar Boogie," his first claim to fame), he wrote "Feuding Banjos," later known as "Duelling Banjos." I never knew this before I went digging. And he definitely had some chops.

As I said, I got assigned to learn "Mandolin Boogie" by fearless leader of my old jug band for a feature. To learn it I ran the 45 at 33 over and over and over - he's got almost every riff you would want in there, one after another after another. Anyone who masters this and plays it at the right tempo (a bluesy one) will be accorded the respect of untold dozens of aficionados and acknowledged as a Blues Master.

The video I mentioned earlier has been removed. There's a nice enough one with some interesting info. It's not embedding, but here's the link. And another video that runs all right here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KbMwF4QrLw

[Charles E.]

I went out to St. Louis for a few days last week for a holiday family get-together. Having recently learned some things about Arthur Smith due to involvement on another thread, including his time spent in Charlotte during his life and burial thereafterward, I fit a visit to his grave into my schedule for my flight out of the airport there. I'd learned his tombstone was in the shape of an obelisk, and it was a small cemetery, so finding it was easy. I'm glad I went, because lichens had grown up over its face, and I was able to clean it off. I was following in Geoff Muldaur's footsteps, who took the time once to find Blind Lemon Jefferson's grave, buy a broom, and sweep it off. That was in response to his wishes expressed in his song, "See That My Grave Is Kept Clean." I had some ammonia and a scrub brush on board, so this was easily done.

Very cool JB, have a good New Year.

[Mark Gunter]

Awesome stuff, JB. I, too, have cleaned Blind Lemon’s grave four years ago. One of my hobbies is restoring historical markers and headstones, though I have little time for it. It’s always rewarding to do that.

[journeybear]

Thanks, guys. There is a bit more to this story, though not entirely relevant. The reason I had ammonia and a scrub brush on board is that I paid a visit to another cemetery earlier in the journey, to clean the gavestone of a local personage, the namesake of the road my house is on. She was quite a character, a real upstanding citizen, involved with the community, committed to making it a better place, and was even named Citizen of the Year once. I'd done a little sleuthing a couple of months ago and found where she is buried, a couple of towns away, and saw her grave had been neglected - also with lichens growing on it. I'd made a note to take care of that next time I passed by, which was on this trip. My friend and landlord, who even knew her when he was much younger and whose recollections of her had impressed me, and who was also flying out from Charlotte, thought I was a bit crazy for doing this - at both sites - but was also touched that I cared enough to go out of my way to see to it. I dunno, sometimes it just seems to me that one has to do what should be done, and it's not much more complicated than that. And since he was there, I got pictures from the activity.

Here are before and after pictures. The discoloration will disappear once the stone dries.

[Bren]

Good work JB.

Another precedent for your action is Scottish poet Robert Burns, who in the 1700s paid for a gravestone for Robert Fergusson, a brilliant Scots poet who'd died aged 24 and buried in an unmarked grave.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/robertbur...ergusson_poet/

[journeybear]

Thanks. I believe it is good to honor those who have gone before, and doing this is one way to do that. I may be thinking a bit more than I need about mortality and immortality, but death is part of life. One wishes to not be forgotten, but remembered. I've seen it said that people live after they're gone as long as those who knew them live on and remember them, think about them, talk about them. That may well be so. People who have had an impact on the world and its inhabitants and activities live even longer, so to speak. For instance, Bill Monroe passed more than 27 years ago, and he lives on in the hearts, minds, and music of many here and all over the world. (Managed to get some MC in.) Arthur Smith did have an impact on the world, did much from which many others benefitted, and deserves to be remembered for what he did.