Breakfast with Johnny Smith -- Previously unpublished transcript!

[archtopeddy]

Note: I'm not sure if I should post this here since this section is primarily about gear. But since there is some discussion about gear in this transcript, and since more viewers might find it here, I thought I'd take the chance and post it here. If the moderators wish to move it, please do as you see best. This was recorded less than three months before Johnny Smith died. To the best of my knowledge, it is among the last transcribed discussions with Johnny Smith.-- Archtop Eddy


Breakfast with Johnny Smith -- Jan. 21, 2013

My good friend and local guitar hero Alan Joseph introduced me to his guitar hero -- Johnny Smith. We met at Johnny’s favorite watering hole, the Point Bar and Grill in Colorado Springs on Jan. 21, 2013. This was just a few months before Johnny died at age 90 on June 11, 2013. We were just hanging out -- guitar players drinking coffee, eating fries and telling stories. Fortunately, I audio taped it on my iPhone but I never did anything with the recording. My good friend Alan passed away three years ago this week, so I thought this was a good time to transcribe the tape, both in Alan and Johnny’s memories.

This was not an interview per se. It was just some guitar players hanging out and talking. While the discussion was a bit scattered, there was some interesting stuff covered from Django to George Barnes, Benny Goodman to Bing Crosby and more. Hope you enjoy it.

The discussion started with us talking about Django Reinhardt. Here’s what Johnny said about Django:

Johnny Smith: After I was in New York, Django came over here and I chauffeured him around. I took Django down to see Les Paul at the Paramount Theater and spent the afternoon, and I hadn’t shaved or anything. Django was playing at this cafe society uptown a real (old) Victorian place and I was going to drop him off there and he insisted on me coming in and having dinner with him. I was pretty embarrassed because everybody was in ties you know. But we went in and ate, they put us over in a corner, and all of a sudden Django started banging on a table -- raised all kinds of hell, making a scene, and come to find out -- they were all talking French -- come to find out what upset him was that we didn’t have a little vase for the flower on our table.

Archtop Eddy: Haha. So he was insulted. Did he get his vase -- Did they give him a vase with a flower?

JS: Oh yeah. That was the only way to console him. (Both JS and AE laugh!)

AE: Johnny, did you get a chance to play with Django?

JS: No, I knew better than that! (Again, laughter from all)

JS: He and Les Paul played a little bit together.

AE: So you saw them play together -- him and Les Paul?

JS: Just in the dressing room.

AE: Do you recall what songs they played...

JS: (No clear response)

Alan Joseph: Did you say that George Barnes came to the store? (Note: This is in reference to Johnny Smith’s Music Store which was now closed. Johnny lived in the same neighborhood as his store and it was also just a few blocks from where we were eating at, at the Point Bar and Grill)

JS: He taught there for a while.

AJ: When was that -- do you remember? Late 60s?

JS: I don’t remember...

AJ: Did he live here for a while?

JS: Yeah, he and his wife.

JS (thinking back about Barnes and his wife): I was playing at this night-club in New York called the Embers and George and his wife came in and I’d just gotten a new DeAngelico made for me, and I was showing it off to George, and his wife says, “That cut-away reminds me of a lady with one hip.” (Group laughter)

JS: And I said, “Well if it made her better in bed, I’d be all for it.” (More laughter)

JS: She didn’t like me too much.

AE: You said you recorded with George Barnes once...

JS: Recorded with him? That was only at a session with two or more guitarist but I don’t remember much about that.

AE: When you first heard Django, you must have been young, right? What did you think of Django when you heard him?

JS: Incredible! I use to save up my nickels and buy every 78 recording and learned to play all of his solos.

AE: How did you learn his solos? Did you slow it down?

JS: Just by listening.

AE: Was there anything you felt you learned by listening to his solos?

JS: It was pure. And you learn by listening.

AE: I guess what I mean is, did he influence you any in your playing?

JS: I’m sure it had -- a little bit.

AJ injects here: Johnny listened to a lot of Django and lot of Charlie Christian. And you know Johnny played with Benny Goodman, right?

Johnny’s son, who was with him, injects here by by saying: “I won’t even make you tell that story about you and Benny Goodman up at Red Rocks (near Denver Colorado). Come on you gotta tell at least one story...

JS: Well, he (Benny Goodman) called me and wanted me to play with him up in Red Rocks. And he needed a drummer (too) so I got my drummer to come, so I went up to Denver, went up to his hotel, early in the morning while he was checking out a whole cigar box full of reeds. And so we talked about it and then I went and checked into a motel and played with him that night with Slam Stewart, my drummer, and Teddy Wilson on piano. We finally got through about eleven o’clock at night, and Benny Goodman offered me a check -- for thirty dollars! (Everyone laughs)

JS: So I say (sarcastically), “Oh Benny it’s been such a pleasure (Again, everyone laughs). And... the son-of-a-bitch took it back! (Everyone is belly laughing now)

JS: I don’t know how he (Benny Goodman) called me but my wife and I had our boat down in Mazatlan (Mexico). All of a sudden -- there was no telephone in our room -- so they came up and said, “Mr. Smith, somebody wants you on the phone.” And I got on the phone, and it was Benny. He said, “Johnny, you got to come up here and go up to Alaska with me. I got a concert to play.” I said, “Benny, I can’t do that. I can’t leave my wife and my boat. I can’t leave.” And he got so pissed off...

AJ: Especially for thirty bucks! (Everyone busts out laughs)

JS: With the sextet, I went with Benny out to the University of Indiana to play with the xylophonist... huh...

AJ: Lionel Hampton?...

JS: ...Terrance Snyder... and went out there and you know the redcaps were all there for Benny Goodman and you know this little kid drove up in a GI truck to take the instruments out to the school. And you know what Benny said to the truck driver who didn’t have two cents to his name, “Hey pops, would you take care of the redcaps?” (More laughter)

JS: They made that movie, The Benny Goodman Story, and he wanted me to come out to Hollywood from New York to do the movie, and I said, “What does it pay?” He says, “Well it pays union scale,” which was a fraction of what I was making in New York, and I said I can’t do that.

AJ: I think it was uh... Was it Allan Reuss that was in the movie? Is that his name?

JS: Yeah, yeah... Allan Reuss. One of them guitar players... (Laughter)

AJ: Did you ever run into Charlie Christian back in the day?

JS: I met Charlie way back before World War II. I was a kid in Portland of Maine and Charlie Christian was with the band and he came to Portland and I got to meet him, and I hung out with him one night. He sat in and played with the group.

AE: When did you start playing electric guitar?

JS: As soon as they came out. But in those days they were very unreliable. You had to slide the pickup under the strings and you had to play like this (at an angle) to keep the pickup from moving.

AE: Did Charlie Christian inspire you to play electric guitar?

JS: He just inspired me to play guitar -- period. My dad wanted me to play the violin and I got very good playing hillbilly music and use to win first prize down in Alabama. And once I played at this convention and the first prize -- and this was way back in the depression -- the first prize I won was a five pound bag of sugar. (Laughter)

AJ: That was probably good wages.

JS: That was like white gold!

JS: But I always loved the guitar, you know.* I never owned a guitar until the man that I was giving guitar lessons to gave me my first guitar. It was an old Gibson Kalamazoo.

AJ: Was it an archtop with F holes?

JS: No. It was a roundhole, flat-top.

AE: Did you ever meet Slim Gaillard?

JS: Oh yeah!

AE: Do you have any stories about Slim for us?

JS: He played a piano with his hands upside down. Slim and Slam.

AJ: The concert at Red Rocks with Benny Goodman and Teddy Wilson and Slam Stewart... That must have been a while ago.

JS: They had the Denver Symphony there and Benny played -- tried to play -- the concerto...

AJ: Tried to play (Everyone laughs)

AJ: Johnny, tell Ed about one of your greatest “transitions”...

JS: Well, I use to average about 22 weeks out of the year in Birdland in New York. It was like a house group. And in this one engagement, I finished playing in Birdland at four o’clock in the morning, and at nine o’clock that same morning I was sitting in the middle of the New York Philharmonic.

AE: Quite the day! Hey, by the way, do you know Bucky Pizzarelli? I met him two years ago.

JS: Oh yeah? He’s a good man.

AE: I saw Bucky with Howard Alden and Howard sent me a bunch of recordings of George Barnes Plantation Party radio show. From the 1940s, I think...

JS: Well, George was a hell of a player.

AJ: Johnny told me once that Bing Crosby called him to play a concert in Norway and it was so cold up there that Bing Crosby couldn’t handle it. So they wrapped him in newspaper.

AE: Wrapped who in newspaper?

AJ: Bing Crosby. (Everyone laughs)

AJ: Is that true?

JS: I got that from a guy that I was doing a radio show with in New York -- Ray Rodell (sp?) -- and he use to come in during the wintertime and peel back his shirt and pull out all these newspapers. That’s where I got the idea. I stuffed Bing up with that and got him warmed up.

AJ: Newspaper was softer back then. (All laugh)

AE: Thank you for talking to us about Django and George Barnes.

JS: You’re welcome.

AE: Charlie Christian died way to young...

JS: Well, he was on self-destruct.



A few additional random notes on the breakfast with Johnny Smith.

Regarding the point where Johnny mentioned that George Barnes actually lived in Colorado Springs and worked at Johnny’s store. I am amazed to think that at one point you could get lessons in this quiet neck of the woods from either Johnny Smith or George Barnes!

As Johnny was getting ready to leave, I couldn’t help but notice how he had carefully wrapped a few french fries in a paper napkin and placed them in shirt pocket. I asked him if that was a snack for later and he laughed and said, “No, no... Those are for my dog out in the truck.”

* And there is a point in the recording where a transcript fails to do justice to the moment in time. I’ll take you back to the scene: There was a slight pause in his thought and he had a far away look on his face. Suddenly he turned to me, looked at me with his piercing blue eyes, and said, “I always loved the guitar.” That moment chilled me. As the legendary guitarist of 90 years age looked back at his life and times, during that moment, and just for that moment alone, there was no greater truth in the world then than those five simple words from Johnny Smith: “I always loved the guitar.”

Thanks for letting me share these transcript excerpts with you.

-- Archtop Eddy

[jads57]

Thanks for the great interview with one of the greats! I always though of J.S. as a straight shirt kind of guy u til I was fortunate enough to see him in concert in 1977 or so.
One of the funniest guys ever! And technique to die for as well! Thanks Johnny!

[skykomishone]

Joe D is going to love reading this. Johnny Smith is one of his favorites! Mine too!
Thanks for the post.
P.S., I took some guitar lessons from Cal Collins. He played in Goodman's band too, and I think Kessel did too!

[Max405]

Thank you soo much for this.
90 years old and still remembered everyone’s name.
Sky, you are so right buddy. I completely enjoyed that so very much. We adored a very classy man. Who had an amazing life. I am still in awe when hear his recordings. He wrote the most amazing arrangements of some of the greatest songs of all time.
Johnny is my guy.
This made my night.
JD

[Michael Neverisky]

A delightful read, thank you very much!


“No, no... Those are for my dog out in the truck.”

“I always loved the guitar.”

We would have gotten along perfectly.

[medblues]

Brilliant, thanks very very much Archtop Eddy !

[archtopeddy]

I'm glad I could offer you guys this transcript. Over the years this group has been so educational and sharing -- It feels good to give back something meaningful to you. Stay safe all and have a happy holiday season. AE

[steve burchfield]

I remember calling Mr. Smith when I purchased one of his namesake Gibsons in the seventies and he was very nice. He told me basically that he had given Gibson his D Angelico to copy. I just paid 42$ for a Mike Elliot Contemporary Chord Solos Vol Two and it took over 5 weeks to receive it, but it was worth it to me because it is written in the Johnny Smith Style by his good friend and disciple Mike Elliot who I used to study with in Nashville. Mel Deal who went on to write a Mel Bay Book and study with Jimmy Rainey was also one of Mikes students. He would start his students with the 3 octave arps Johnny Smith technique books. Johnny would use the Grand Staff like a piano player ,which included bass and treble staves. My recent M. Elliot book says 5.95$ on the cover. Well thats inflation!!!