Johnny Smith
Encyclopedia
Johnny Smith is an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 cool jazz
Cool jazz
Cool is a style of modern jazz music that arose following the Second World War. It is characterized by its relaxed tempos and lighter tone, in contrast to the bebop style that preceded it...

 and mainstream jazz
Mainstream jazz
Mainstream jazz is a genre of jazz music that was first used in reference to the playing styles around the 1950s of musicians like Buck Clayton among others; performers who once heralded from the era of big band swing music who did not abandon swing for bebop, instead performing the music in...

 guitarist.

Early years

During the Depression, Smith's family moved from Birmingham through several cities, ending up in Portland, Maine.

Learning and teaching

Smith taught himself to play guitar in pawnshops, which let him play in exchange for keeping the guitars in tune. At thirteen years of age he was teaching others to play the guitar. One of Smith's students bought a new guitar and gave him his old guitar, which became the first guitar Smith owned.

The young entertainer

Smith joined Uncle Lem and the Mountain Boys, a local hillbilly band. The band travelling around Maine, performing at dances, fairs, and similar venues. Smith earned four dollars a night. He dropped out of high school to accommodate this enterprise.

After becoming interested in the jazz bands he heard on the radio, Smith practiced playing jazz. He left The Mountain Boys when he was eighteen years old to found a jazz trio called The Airport Boys.

Military experience

Having learned to fly from pilots he befriended, Smith enlisted in the United States Army Air Corps
United States Army Air Corps
The United States Army Air Corps was a forerunner of the United States Air Force. Renamed from the Air Service on 2 July 1926, it was part of the United States Army and the predecessor of the United States Army Air Forces , established in 1941...

 in the hopes of becoming a military pilot. He was invalidated from the flight programme because of imperfect vision in his left eye. Given a choice between joining the military band and being sent to mechanic's school, Smith opted to join the military band. Smith claims that they gave him a cornet, an Arban's instructional book
Arban method
The Arban Method is a complete pedagogical method for students of trumpet, cornet, and other brass instruments. The original edition was published by Jean-Baptiste Arban in 1864 and it has never been out of print since. It contains hundreds of exercises, ranging enormously in difficulty...

 and two weeks to meet the standard, which included being able to read music. Determined not to go to mechanic's school, Smith spent the two weeks practicing the cornet in the latrine, as recommended by the bandleader, and passed the examination.

Career

An extremely diverse musician, Johnny Smith was equally at home playing in the famous Birdland jazz club
Birdland (jazz club)
Birdland is a jazz club started in New York City on December 15, 1949. The original Birdland, which was located at 1678 Broadway, just north of West 52nd Street in Manhattan, was closed in 1965 due to increased rents, but it re-opened for one night in 1979...

 or sight reading scores in the orchestral pit of the New York Philharmonic
New York Philharmonic
The New York Philharmonic is a symphony orchestra based in New York City in the United States. It is one of the American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five"...

. From Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg was an Austrian composer, associated with the expressionist movement in German poetry and art, and leader of the Second Viennese School...

 to Gershwin to originals, Smith was one of the most versatile guitarists of the 1950s.

Smith's playing is characterized by closed-position chord voicings and rapidly ascending lines (reminiscent of Django
Django Reinhardt
Django Reinhardt was a pioneering virtuoso jazz guitarist and composer who invented an entirely new style of jazz guitar technique that has since become a living musical tradition within French gypsy culture...

, but more diatonic than chromatically-based). From those famous 1952 sides and in to the 1960s he recorded for the Roost
Roost Records
Roost Records was a record label established in 1949, primarily to record jazz, taking its secondary name from the New York club with which it was associated...

 label, on whose releases his reputation mainly rests. Mosaic Records
Mosaic Records
Mosaic Records is an American specialist jazz record label, founded in 1983 by Michael Cuscuna and Charlie Lourie to issue coherent limited edition box sets of jazz recordings by individual musicians, which had fallen out-of-print...

 has issued the majority of them in an 8CD set.

His most critically acclaimed album was Moonlight in Vermont
Moonlight in Vermont (album)
Moonlight in Vermont is a 1952 jazz album by jazz guitarist Johnny Smith, featuring tenor saxophonist Stan Getz. The album, titled for Smith's breakthrough hit song, was the #1 Jazz Album for 1952. The album was popularly and critically well-received and has come to be regarded as an important...

(one of Down Beat
Down Beat
Down Beat is an American magazine devoted to "jazz, blues and beyond" to indicate its expansion beyond the jazz realm which it covered exclusively in previous years. The publication was established in 1934 in Chicago, Illinois...

 magazine's top two jazz records for 1952, featuring saxophonist Stan Getz
Stan Getz
Stanley Getz was an American jazz saxophone player. Getz was known as "The Sound" because of his warm, lyrical tone, his prime influence being the wispy, mellow timbre of his idol, Lester Young. Coming to prominence in the late 1940s with Woody Herman's big band, Getz is described by critic Scott...

).

His most famous musical composition is the tune "Walk Don't Run
Walk, Don't Run (song)
"Walk, Don't Run" is an instrumental composition written and first performed by jazz guitarist Johnny Smith in 1955. The tune is essentially a counter-melody to the chord changes of the old standard, "Softly, As in the Morning Sunrise"....

", written for a 1955 recording session as counter-melody to the chord changes of "Softly, As in the Morning Sunrise". Another guitarist, Chet Atkins
Chet Atkins
Chester Burton Atkins , known as Chet Atkins, was an American guitarist and record producer who, along with Owen Bradley, created the smoother country music style known as the Nashville sound, which expanded country's appeal to adult pop music fans as well.Atkins's picking style, inspired by Merle...

, covered the song. Some musicians who became The Ventures
The Ventures
The Ventures is an American instrumental rock band formed in 1958 in Tacoma, Washington. Founded by Don Wilson and Bob Bogle, the group in its various incarnations has had an enduring impact on the development of music worldwide. With over 100 million records sold, the group is the best-selling...

 heard the Atkins version, simplified it and sped it
up, and recorded it in 1960. The Ventures' version went to #2 on the Billboard Top 100 for a week in September 1960.

Johnny Smith stepped out of the public eye/ear in the 1960s, having moved to Colorado
Colorado
Colorado is a U.S. state that encompasses much of the Rocky Mountains as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the Great Plains...

 in 1958 to teach and run a music store and to raise his daughter after the death of his second wife.

Partial discography

  • Moonlight in Vermont
    Moonlight in Vermont (album)
    Moonlight in Vermont is a 1952 jazz album by jazz guitarist Johnny Smith, featuring tenor saxophonist Stan Getz. The album, titled for Smith's breakthrough hit song, was the #1 Jazz Album for 1952. The album was popularly and critically well-received and has come to be regarded as an important...

    (1952)
  • In A Mellow Mood
  • In a Sentimental Mood
  • Johnny Smith Plays Jimmy Van Heusen
  • The New Johnny Smith Quartet
  • The Sound of the Johnny Smith Guitar

Johnny Smith guitars

Guild
Guild Guitar Company
The Guild Guitar Company is a USA-based guitar manufacturer founded in 1952 by Alfred Dronge, a guitarist and music-store owner, and George Mann, a former executive with the Epiphone Guitar Company...

, Gibson
Gibson Guitar Corporation
The Gibson Guitar Corporation, formerly of Kalamazoo, Michigan and currently of Nashville, Tennessee, manufactures guitars and other instruments which sell under a variety of brand names...

, and Heritage
Heritage Guitars
Heritage Guitars is a guitar manufacturer in Kalamazoo, Michigan, United States.-History:Heritage Guitars was founded in 1985 by former employees of the Gibson guitar factory...

 have all made guitar models designed and endorsed by Johnny Smith. In each case, the guitar was designed wholly or in part by Smith. Each design was a full-bodied archtop guitar with a top carved from solid spruce and a back and sides made of solid maple. All the on-board electronics for each guitar, from the small pickup in the neck position through the volume knob to the output jack, were mounted on the pickguard.

Smith claims to have learned about guitar design by observing master luthier
Luthier
A luthier is someone who makes or repairs lutes and other string instruments. In the United States, the term is used interchangeably with a term for the specialty of each maker, such as violinmaker, guitar maker, lute maker, etc...

 John D'Angelico
John D'Angelico
John D'Angelico was a luthier from New York City, noted for his handmade archtop guitars and mandolins.In 1952, he hired Jimmy D'Aquisto as an apprentice, who would eventually buy the business from the D'Angelico family...

, who was his friend and guitar supplier when he lived in New York.

Guild Johnny Smith Award

In 1955, after discussions with Alfred Dronge, chairman and founder of Guild Guitar Company
Guild Guitar Company
The Guild Guitar Company is a USA-based guitar manufacturer founded in 1952 by Alfred Dronge, a guitarist and music-store owner, and George Mann, a former executive with the Epiphone Guitar Company...

, Smith designed a guitar and sent the drawings and specifications to Dronge. The Guild designers modified it (to Smith's dissatisfaction), and manufactured the resulting guitar as the Guild Johnny Smith Award.

Gibson Johnny Smith

In 1961, Ted McCarty
Ted McCarty
Ted McCarty was a pioneer of electric guitar design and production. This began when he was chosen as vice president of the of Gibson Guitar Corporation in 1949, then later as president in 1950. He remained president until 1966. This period became known as Gibson's golden age of electric guitars...

, then president of Gibson, went to meet the retired Smith at his home in Colorado Springs. McCarty spent several days with Smith, during which time Smith designed the guitar he wanted built. The design was accepted by Gibson with a few minor cosmetic changes which were acceptable to Smith. Gibson began production of the resulting Gibson Johnny Smith model that year. Guild continued to produce their Johnny Smith guitar under the model name Guild Artist Award.

Heritage Johnny Smith

When Gibson moved its manufacturing facilities from Kalamazoo, Michigan
Kalamazoo, Michigan
The area on which the modern city stands was once home to Native Americans of the Hopewell culture, who migrated into the area sometime before the first millennium. Evidence of their early residency remains in the form of a small mound in downtown's Bronson Park. The Hopewell civilization began to...

 to Nashville, Tennessee
Nashville, Tennessee
Nashville is the capital of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the county seat of Davidson County. It is located on the Cumberland River in Davidson County, in the north-central part of the state. The city is a center for the health care, publishing, banking and transportation industries, and is home...

, several of their managers and artisans chose to stay behind. Many of these ex-employees formed Heritage Guitars
Heritage Guitars
Heritage Guitars is a guitar manufacturer in Kalamazoo, Michigan, United States.-History:Heritage Guitars was founded in 1985 by former employees of the Gibson guitar factory...

 and bought the old Kalamazoo factory from Gibson. Given a choice between Gibson and Heritage building the guitar that bore his name, Smith chose to stay with the old artisans at the old location under new ownership. The Heritage Johnny Smith model was introduced in 1989. Like Guild before them, Gibson continued to manufacture their version of the Johnny Smith design with a new name: the Gibson LeGrand.

Guild Johnny Smith Award by Benedetto

William Schultz, chairman of Fender Musical Instruments Corporation, of which Guild Guitars was a subsidiary, asked Smith if he would be willing to return his endorsement to the Guild Artist Award. Familiar with Schultz's management, and knowing that the construction would be supervised by master luthier Bob Benedetto, Smith agreed. The Guild Johnny Smith Award by Benedetto was available through Guild dealers until early 2006 when Benedetto left Fender. Unlike Guild and Gibson, Heritage Guitars discontinued manufacture of their Smith-designed guitar after Smith withdrew his endorsement.

External links

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