Hobart Smith

Trackimage Playbut Trackname Playbut Trackname
Railroad Bill 00:00 Tools
Banging Breakdown 00:00 Tools
Katy Went Fishing With Her Hook And Line 00:00 Tools
Claude Allen 00:00 Tools
Hawkins County Jail 00:00 Tools
Drunken Hiccups 00:00 Tools
Sourwood Mountain 00:00 Tools
See That My Grave Is Kept Clean 00:00 Tools
Soldier's Joy 00:00 Tools
The Devil's Dream 00:00 Tools
Cripple Creek 00:00 Tools
Graveyard Blues 00:00 Tools
Black Annie 00:00 Tools
Wayfaring Stranger 00:00 Tools
Poor Ellen Smith 00:00 Tools
John Brown's Dream 00:00 Tools
John Brown 00:00 Tools
Old Joe Clark 00:00 Tools
Jim Along 00:00 Tools
Cuckoo Bird 00:00 Tools
Uncloudy Day 03:43 Tools
Last Chance 00:00 Tools
The Arkansas Traveler 00:00 Tools
Soldier, Soldier 00:00 Tools
Pateroller Song 00:00 Tools
The Cuckoo Bird 00:00 Tools
Fly Around My Blue-Eyes Girl 00:00 Tools
Peg An' Awl 00:00 Tools
Heaven's Airplane 00:00 Tools
The Little Schoolboy 00:00 Tools
Parson Burrs 00:00 Tools
Devil's Dream 00:00 Tools
Pretty Polly 00:00 Tools
Fly Around My Pretty Little Miss 00:00 Tools
Cindy 00:00 Tools
Buck Creek Girls 00:00 Tools
What Did the Buzzard Say to the Crow 00:00 Tools
Brown Skin Blues 00:00 Tools
Wabash Blues 00:00 Tools
John Henry 00:00 Tools
John Greer's Two-Step 00:00 Tools
Jim And Me 00:00 Tools
Pateroller 00:00 Tools
Going Down the Road Feeling Bad 00:00 Tools
K.C. Blues 00:00 Tools
Give Me Your Heart 00:00 Tools
I'll Meet You When The Sun Goes Down 00:00 Tools
I Feel So Good 00:00 Tools
Wildwood Flower 00:00 Tools
Dixie 00:00 Tools
Hangman, Swing Your Rope 00:00 Tools
Cumberland Gap 00:00 Tools
Peg and Awl 00:00 Tools
Indian March 00:00 Tools
Chatham Hill Serenade 00:00 Tools
Chinquipin Pie 00:00 Tools
Walking Boss 00:00 Tools
Railroad Bill (Remastered) 00:00 Tools
Katie Went A-Fishin' With A Hook And Line 00:00 Tools
Woman At The Well 00:00 Tools
Clog Dance With Guitar 00:00 Tools
The Great Titanic 00:00 Tools
Railroad Bill - Remastered 00:00 Tools
K.C. Moan 00:00 Tools
Unidentified electric guitar tune 00:00 Tools
Arkansas Traveler 00:00 Tools
Arkansas Traveller 00:00 Tools
Two brothers (The Little Schoolboy) 00:00 Tools
Ellen Smith 00:00 Tools
Buck Dance 00:00 Tools
Rocky Mountain 00:00 Tools
Chinquapin Pie 00:00 Tools
John Greer's Tune 00:00 Tools
"Full of Music as I Could Be" 00:00 Tools
The Devil and the Farmer's Wife 00:00 Tools
Sitting On Top of the World 00:00 Tools
Bonaparte's Retreat 00:00 Tools
John Hardy 00:00 Tools
Columbus Stockade Blues 00:00 Tools
Lonely Tombs 00:00 Tools
The Girl I Left Behind Me 00:00 Tools
The Coo Coo Bird 00:00 Tools
Meet Me in Rose Time, Rosie 00:00 Tools
Clog Dance 00:00 Tools
Sourwood Mountain: Square Dance Tune 00:00 Tools
Black Annie and Sally Ann 00:00 Tools
What Did the Buzzard Say to the Crow? 00:00 Tools
Short Life of Trouble 00:00 Tools
Sally Ann 00:00 Tools
Joe Turner 00:00 Tools
Short Life in Trouble 00:00 Tools
Banging Breakdown - Remastered 00:00 Tools
Stormy Rose the Ocean 00:00 Tools
Railroad Bill (banjo) 00:00 Tools
Storms Are on the Ocean 00:00 Tools
The Devil's Dream (Remastered) 00:00 Tools
Lonely Tombs - Remastered 00:00 Tools
Clause Allen 00:00 Tools
Shady Grove 00:00 Tools
Banging Breakdown (Remastered) 00:00 Tools
Sourwood Mountain (Piano) 00:00 Tools
Cindy (string band) 00:00 Tools
Sourwood Mountain (banjo) 00:00 Tools
Cindy (piano) 00:00 Tools
The Devil's Dream - Remastered 00:00 Tools
'Full Of Music As I Could Be' 00:00 Tools
At an Old-Time Dance (interview) 00:00 Tools
Soldier Soldier 00:00 Tools
At an Old Timey Dance Interview 00:00 Tools
At an Old-Timey Dance (interview) 00:00 Tools
at an old timey dance 00:00 Tools
Katy Went Fishing With Her Hook And Line (live) 00:00 Tools
Black Annie [#] 00:00 Tools
Cindy [#] 00:00 Tools
Lonely Tombs (Remastered) 00:00 Tools
Full Of Music As I Could Be 00:00 Tools
Buck Dance [#] 00:00 Tools
Dixie [#] 00:00 Tools
Down In The Willow Garden 00:00 Tools
Blues 00:00 Tools
The Thrill of Dance Music (interview) 00:00 Tools
Banging Breakdown - Hobart Smith 00:00 Tools
Brown Sky Blues 00:00 Tools
Soldier's Joy - Hobart Smith 00:00 Tools
The Arkansas Traveler - Hobart Smith 00:00 Tools
At an Old Timey Dance (Interview) 00:00 Tools
Poor Ellen Smith - Hobart Smith 00:00 Tools
Two Brothers 00:00 Tools
Wayfaring Stranger [#] 00:00 Tools
12-Pateroller 00:00 Tools
14-Last Chance 00:00 Tools
Molly Brooks 00:00 Tools
Soldier, Soldier - Hobart Smith 00:00 Tools
Meet Me At The Rose Place, Rosie 00:00 Tools
John Brown - Hobart Smith 00:00 Tools
03 Devil's Dream 00:00 Tools
John Greer’s Two-Step 00:00 Tools
The Great Titantic 00:00 Tools
01 Soldier's Joy 00:00 Tools
When The Stars Begin To Fall 00:00 Tools
02 Peg and Awl 00:00 Tools
1.Soldier's Joy (banjo) 00:00 Tools
Heaven’s Airplane 00:00 Tools
What Did the Buzzard Say to the Crow? [#] 00:00 Tools
John Brown’s Dream 00:00 Tools
Clog Dange With Guitar 00:00 Tools
See That My Grave Is Kept Clea 00:00 Tools
It Just Suits Me (feat. Bessie Jones) 00:00 Tools
7.Soldier's Joy (fiddle) 00:00 Tools
Katy went Fishing with Her Hook & Line 00:00 Tools
At an Old-Timey Dance [Interview][#] 00:00 Tools
Fly Around My Blue-Eyed Girl (Hobart Smith) 00:00 Tools
The Little Schoolboy (Hobart Smith) 00:00 Tools
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Hobart Smith (May 10, 1897—January 11, 1965) was an American old-time musician. He was most notable for his appearance with his sister, Texas Gladden, on a series of Library of Congress recordings in the 1940s and his later appearances at various festivals during the folk music revival of the 1960s. Smith is often remembered for his virtuosic performances on the banjo, and had also mastered various other instruments, including the fiddle, guitar, piano, harmonica, accordion, and organ. Hobart Smith was born near Saltville, Virginia in 1897, the oldest son of eight children born to Louvine and Alexander King Smith. Hobart believed the ballad-singing tradition in his family dated back at least seven generations to when the Smiths immigrated from England. Both of Hobart's grandfathers were fiddle players, and his parents were banjo players. When Alan Lomax traveled to Saltville to record Hobart in 1942, he also recorded Hobart's father playing a version of "Old Joe Clark". Hobart recalled his family staying up late at night singing hymns and ballads around the fireplace in their home just outside of Saltville. Hobart's parents bought him his first banjo when was seven, and he learned piano by playing at church revivals in the area. In 1911, an African-American fiddle player named Jim Spencer began lodging at the Smith house, and taught Hobart how to play the fiddle. Impressed with the African-American style, Hobart and his cousin, John Galliher, began sneaking over to the segregated side of Saltville to hear black musicians. In later interviews, both claimed to have heard an itinerant guitarist named "Blind Lemon Jefferson" (modern researchers doubt this was the legendary Texas bluesman, however), who inspired Smith to purchase a guitar and learn to play that instrument as well. Around the same time, a neighbor of Smith's named John Greer taught Smith a "double-noting" banjo style he had learned from African-American musicians, which Smith later used to complement the frailing style taught to him by his father. Around 1915, Smith formed a string band and began performing at minstrel shows and medicine shows, and over subsequent years performed at venues around western Virginia, especially in the Abingdon area and at Emory & Henry College. In 1936, Smith and his sister, Texas Gladden (1895-1967), delivered a memorable performance at the White Top Folk Festival in southwestern Virginia. The performance impressed Eleanor Roosevelt, who was in attendance, and two years later she invited Smith and Gladden to perform at the White House. These early appearances brought them to the attention of various folklorists and musicologists, including Alan Lomax, who at the time was working for the U.S. Library of Congress. In 1942, Smith recorded 40 tracks for Lomax at Saltville, among them "Banging Breakdown", Cuckoo Bird, "Wayfaring Stranger", and "Sourwood Mountain". Lomax introduced Smith to Moses Asch, and in 1946 Smith traveled to New York to record for Asch's Disc label. Both Lomax and Asch continued to record Smith over the years, sometimes as a soloist, and sometimes performing duets with his sister or other singers such as Almeda Riddle and Bessie Jones. Smith experienced a resurgence during the folk music revival of the 1960s. He made numerous appearances at folk festivals around the United States, most notably at the Newport Folk Festival in 1964. He played in several different bands with other noted musicians, including Clarence Ashley, whom he had met at a medicine show in the 1930s. In October 1963, Smith participated in two notable recording sessions, both in Chicago. The first was conducted by Chicago radio station WFMT program director, Norm Pellegrini, which consisted of material released on the Folk-Legacy label. A second, less formal session was conducted by folk music teacher Fleming Brown at Brown's home, parts of which were released in 2005 by Smithsonian Folkways. At both recordings, Smith was already feeling the painful effects of a heart embolism that would take his life on January 11, 1965. Hobart Smith was a banjo virtuoso who had mastered both the "frailing" or "clawhammer" style taught to him by his father and the "double-noting" style, which was taught to him by John Greer and was heavily rooted in the instrument's African-American tradition. His notable banjo recordings include Cuckoo Bird and "Banging Breakdown" (the latter being a favorite at festivals), both of which he learned from neighbor and bandmate John Greer, and "Old Joe Clark" and "John Henry", both of which he leared from his father. While Smith was a Baptist, most of his religious recordings are from the Holiness tradition, since Baptists at the time frowned upon instrumental music. Smith learned "Heaven's Airplane"— recorded in 1963— from a Holiness preacher. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.