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The Music Maker

David Smith is a music man at heart, but his career does more than pay the bills. Read on, and learn how the Springfield-based musician is helping change the world—and win awards while he’s at it.

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David Smith doesn’t have an ordinary basement. No ill-fated futon, boxes of yellowing Christmas cards, piles of sweaters shrunken in the wash. The basement in Smith’s south Nixa home isn’t relegated to aging junk and garage-sale leftovers. Instead, the rooms occupy his own professional music studio, a 20-year endeavor that Smith spent acquiring recording equipment like an eccentric hobbyist: a synthesizer here, an amplifier there. It makes sense that Smith spends a vast chunk of his time in his 400-square-foot home studio.

Equal parts singer, songwriter, recording artist and musician, Smith is constantly in between several projects at once, whether he’s recording demo tapes for a Drury University student with a smoky vibrato, writing songs for the Springfield-based African charity, Watoto, or researching instrumentals for the local island band, Cruise Control. With his workload and dedication to music, it’s easy to see why Smith walked away from the 2009 Just Plain Folks Music Awards, which is the world’s largest independent music awards, clenching a trophy for the best instrumental album of the year. At the awards banquet in Nashville, Smith was stunned into speechlessness, managing a quick, “This is awesome! Thanks!” on the podium. “I actually didn’t know what to say,” says Smith. “I was a total deer in headlights.” 

The Making of a Just Plain Singer

It’s obvious that his career comes naturally to Smith, who has spent the past 18 years in the music industry. Before that, music was solely a weekend activity, confined to Saturday night gigs playing the keyboard in local bands. During the week, Smith cut hair at The Clip Joint alongside his wife, Kelly. “I tried to quit playing music, and I just couldn’t,” says Smith. “It’s what I’m supposed to do.” With that in mind, Smith decided to pursue music full-time. Smith used the contacts he made while doing hair for several Branson stars, earning him a gig as the piano and banjo player on The Doug Gabriel Show in 1992. In his spare time, Smith recorded the opening theme song for The Baldknobbers and spent time in Nashville playing with Justin David’s Band. In 1996, Smith made the leap to the Roy Clark Theatre, performing two shows a day for nearly two years. After the theater was sold in 1999, Smith decided it was time to go on the road. So Roy Clark and the band packed up a tour bus and headed out, making several stops at the Grand Ole Opry and performing after country music icons such as Vince Gill, Alan Jackson, Martina McBride, Randy Travis and Kenny Chesney. It was Smith’s first time on the road, and he loved it. “I’ve seen the country, every province in Canada,” says Smith. “Where haven’t I been?” The band played everywhere, from colleges to casinos, outdoor venues swarming with 20,000 people to performing arts centers with 500. To Smith, every performance is its own.

When Roy Clark and the band cut their workload in half, Smith followed the advice of his friend Brent Smith, the executive director of the Springfield-based African mission organization, Watoto. Brent convinced Smith to take his music on two trips to Uganda, the first for two and a half weeks and the second for 13 days. Smith saw his trip as an opportunity to use his music to help others. Smith even penned 10 songs that are under consideration by Watoto to include on its gospel album. To capture the sound of African music, Smith spent days researching and listening to several different styles. Learning new genres of music isn’t new to Smith; in his youth, he played mostly rock ’n’ roll, yet he made a career out of country music. “[African music] is way out of my element, but I liked the challenge,” says Smith.
In addition to working on his Watoto-inspired album, Smith spent his time in Uganda playing for kids on the street and soaking in the culture. He’s debated whether or not to return for a longer amount of time, but taking too much time away from his wife and music career makes a longer trip difficult. But Smith isn’t ruling out the option just yet. “[The children in Uganda] have nothing, and this organization takes them in and gives them a life,” says Smith. “I was pretty inspired by that situation.”

Finding His Inspiration

But for Smith, inspiration isn’t hard to come by. His songwriting process is sporadic, and he’ll jot down a few lyrics or record a quick piano riff as it comes to him. Then, months later, he’ll apply it to a song, which he forms out of a story in his mind. “Sometimes, the story will fall out of you,” says Smith. “You can’t write it fast enough.” After the lyrics come the rest of the instrumentals and music arrangement. The process may not be the most straightforward, but it works for Smith, who has more than a country-music fan base. Smith’s albums are popular in one of the least-expected places: doctors’ offices. In 1995, several local counselors and psychologists discovered Smith’s music and started using it to calm patients and children with hyperactivity disorders. In 2006, Smith was lead to record and produce The Light Within, an album full of children’s lullabies performed by local musician Skip Lotten. Smith even wrote one of the songs on the album, “Sydney’s Song.”

If the studio walls—lined with newspaper clips, photographs, CDs and album posters—don’t give it away, it’s obvious that Smith is proud of his music, music that penetrates deeper than the stage and carries farther than the audience. Smith still performs on a semi-regular basis with Roy Clark, and he enjoys singing with his wife, who performs with the local group Alley Katz. And always ready for a new adventure, Smith is looking toward pitching his work to TV shows and movies. “I have such a wide variety of interests,” says Smith. “You can do so many different things with music. I just wanted to play for a living.”

Click below to listen to some samples of Dave Smith's music.

 Continue reading for a web-exclusive Q&A with Dave Smith >>>

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