The Press

Blues Access Magazine says:

Josh Smith: Searching For a Style of His Own

Josh Smith, 18, recently released his third indie CD, Too Damn Cold, produced by Jim Gaines.....Who are these youngsters? Where did they come from? A recent Associated Press review said up-and-coming musicians as Lang, Shepherd and Smith represent the future of the blues, an assertion that leaves some traditionalists more than a little queasy. Is it true? Or do they, as some critics counter, lack the authenticity and experience to perform this music?

You can thank 18-year-old Josh Smith's sister, sort of, for setting him on a musical career.

It was October 1982, and Smith's third birthday wasn't going to be much of an event, because his mother was about to give birth to Josh's sister.

Dad didn't want me to feel left out, so he bought me a guitar and a tennis racquet because he loves music and he loves tennis, Smith recalls. The tennis racquet really didn't interest me, but the guitar did. It was a teeny little guitar that almost dwarfed me, I was so small back then. But it didn't matter; it just felt so great when I was holding it.

By age six he was ready for lessons, and at 13 was attending local jam sessions.

The first time I ever got up, Smith explains, I was four feet tall or whatever, and the guitar was as big as me. The second I started playing, people went nuts. Of course, they were clapping for this little kid, but I didn't care & it just blew my mind. I was hooked. That was it. From that day on I knew this was what I was going to do for the rest of my life.

Smith, who lives in Pembroke Pines, Florida, has released three CDs on his own Maddog Music label. The most recent, last November's Too Damn Cold, was produced by Jim Gaines, whose credits include Luther Allison, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Jimmy Thackery, Lonnie Brooks, Blues Traveler, Santana, the Steve Miller Band and Journey, to name a few. With his band, the Frost, Smith's summer tour calendar included a bone-bruising 41 dates in seven weeks, including stops at the House of Blues in Chicago, Huey's in Memphis and B.B. King's in Los Angeles.

Blues was a natural choice for the young guitarist. That comes from my home life. It's what my parents listened to. I'd heard it since the day I was born; Muddy Waters, Albert King, Freddie King, B.B., Albert Collins, T-Bone Walker. That's what I thought was the popular music, he says.

Throw in Thackery, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Jimi Hendrix, and you've got a working basis for Smith's present style and sound. Particularly, both Smith's guitar and vocals reflect the influence of Thackery, a friend and mentor who introduced Smith to Gaines. He's as good a guitar player as anybody I've ever heard, Smith says of Thackery. He's so versatile and he's got his own style. When I hear him I know automatically that it's him.

Smith says he wants the same thing himself. I hope to have my own style, so that hopefully 10 years from now, 30 years from now, someone will turn on the radio and from hearing one note; just like they do with B.B. King & say, That's Josh Smith playing guitar. Everyday I feel I'm getting closer and doing more things that I wouldn't have done the day before, things that I made up, cultivating all my influences into a style.

Smith knows that his youth works as a media angle, which helps get fans out to shows, but also is a point of contention among traditionalists. He hopes that eventually fans will look beyond his age and evaluate his work on its merits alone. I just want to be a musician, not a young musician, despite the fact that I am a young musician, he explains.

His musical peers and heroes, he points out, aren't concerned about his age. I've hung out with B.B. King. He doesn't care how old I am. When I get up and play with the Kenny Neals and the Larry McCrays and the Lucky Petersons, they're trying to rip my head off, just like I'm trying to rip their heads off. We're just having fun. They don't have a problem looking past my age, and I wish all people could do that.

As his work evolves, Smith hopes to land a major label deal, giving him a chance to play the type of venues that host Jonny Lang, Kenny Wayne Shepherd and others. However, if that never happens, he won't mind. I love what I'm doing, getting out there and playing the clubs. If there's a hundred people out there, or a thousand, if they're into you, it gives you a natural rush. I don't mind playing the clubs. It's fun, and I could do it for the rest of my life, definitely, and make a fine living.

Ann Wickstrom - Twin Cities Blues News says:

"..confident, commanding, versatile guitar player..."

"He is running with the big dogs and he's headed straight for the front of the pack."

"The band roared through their first set like a well-oiled machine, sounding as if they'd already been playing for several hours."

"Mid-way through the first song, I wanted to turn to my companions to see if they were as stunned as I was at the sounds coming from Josh's guitar, yet I couldn't take my eyes off of him." "Josh is equally adept at playing in the style of Stevie Ray, soaring like Clapton, and stinging like Albert Collins"

"Mercy, mercy is he fast. He absolutely raced through some of the licks, and not a note was lost in the fury."
"He played slide, he played with his teeth, he played with one hand while downing a Coke with the other. He even played as he walked out the back door, down 8th Avenue, and back in the front door."

"I highly recommend TOO DAMN COLD as a good, all-around blues CD with a little rock and swing mixed in."

"There is much, much more to Josh Smith than the songs he has recorded."

The following is an excerpt from the Richmond Times-Dispatch, June 20, 1997

College Can Definitely Wait On The Blues, For Josh Smith, the guitar "is why I'm out here"

On June 7, Josh Smith graduated from high school in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. While thousands of other new grads hit the road for places like Fort Lauderdale, Smith left the resort town and headed for the Carolinas. His dad went along for the ride. Not exactly a summer break: Smith is a blues man, "three heartbeats away from being a true blues guitar genius," according to Jimmy Thackery, the veteran Nighthawks guitarist.

Smith, who's spent the past week crisscrossing North Carolina and hits Richmond tonight for a date at Moondance Saloon and Restaurant, will be on tour much of the next year.

"College is very important to me", the 17 year old guitarist, singer and songwriter said last weekend. "But, since I'm lucky enough to know what I want to do with my life, I decided to take a year, go out on the road and see what happens"

Like other contemporary blues performers, Smith straddles the line between traditional roots and pop-rock branches.

"Most people now don't have the motivation to write and play the kind of gut-wrenching, lowdown songs that Muddy Waters and those guys did [when] they literally didn't have a penny to their name and didn't know where their next meal or bed was coming from," Smith said.

"But to the people who say I'm not really playing the blues, I disagree. Blues isn't just a musical style. Its a feeling, and I've got it. It just comes out louder, or maybe with more distortion on the guitar, than some people are used to."

"I like all types of blues and I'm comfortable playing acoustic - lowdown swing and jump blues - as well as electric. I try to be very diverse in my shows, make room for traditionalists as well as people who like it heavy."