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Artist
Big Ken Smith
1+ albums
about
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 D
