Country Connections
by James and Ellen Perry
As March 15, 1923, came, the Doc and Ina Smith family had no notion of what was to transpire in a short 23 years, and how their family would be impacted by the birth this day of their only son after bearing and raising five girls. The name given to this baby boy born on this day, just a short walk north of Maynardville, Tennessee, was Carl Milton Smith.
Carl was born in a major transition time as mules and horses were still used as working and draft animals and transportation. The TVA was building dams on all major East Tennessee Rivers for electricity production and flood control down the Tennessee River to Chattanooga and through North Alabama. Farming was still done as his ancestors had done for over 200 years in the Southern Appalachians.
Tractors were new and very undependable and dangerous on the hillsides of East Tennessee. This back-breaking farming went on until the 1950s when farming changed after WWII. As young men came home from their military service, they learned new methods of farming and how to use mechanized farm equipment instead of draft animals and their own backs. Carl Smith grew up working on his daddy’s farm the old way.
Carl lived his boyhood playing, going to nearby Hubbs Grove School, and as most Union County boys, at about 10 years of age, started hunting. Carl hunted squirrels on Comb Ridge that runs N/NE through Union County, Tennessee. His daddy’s farm butted up against Comb Ridge on the backside of the farm.
At an early age Carl was interested in music and wanted a guitar, but money was short. Carl, always thinking, came up with an idea: Make your own guitar. Carl acquired one of his mother’s best cake pans, nailed a board for the neck, fastened baling wire for strings and had a homemade guitar. I can’t find out how many licks with a switch Carl paid for this idea.
Later, during blackberry season, Carl was given a bucket and told to pick it full of blackberries.
Carl, full of ideas as most boys were, filled the bucket 3⁄4 full of rocks and picked blackberries to finish filling the bucket. Again, his rear end paid the price for his head’s idea.
A few years later Carl had another idea. He planned and explored the cave on Loy’s farm. When he finally found his way out and got home, his cave exploring cost his backside plenty.
One summer day, Doc had a field on his farm ready to plant corn. He told Carl to drop the corn seed in the rows and cover them. Another idea filled Carl’s mind. When the corn came up about half of his rows had no corn, but a big stump with a large hole in the middle had an abundance of corn sprouting from it. Another idea gone bad and another debt paid by Carl’s hind end. Well, boys will be boys.
When Carl was about 13 years old he had another idea. He was getting cautious of his ideas by now. He thought this one over and over, could see no danger and proceeded to sell seed to his parents, relatives and neighbors. This turned into the best idea Carl had as a boy. The way I remember selling seed was that if you sold a certain amount you got a gift. Carl selected a guitar.
This started him out on his life’s journey, as later he became one of the top country singers, show host, and MCs in the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s.
Another story told to me by Johnny Smith, Carl’s great nephew, was about how Carl ran a trapline when he was young. Things went well until he got sprayed by a skunk caught in his trap. Miss Ina, his mother, made him sleep in the barn for three days.
Carl’s first performance was at Hubbs Grove Church when he was eight years old. Carl would sit and play his guitar at every chance between school and chores on the farm. When in Horace Maynard High School, Carl teamed with his cousin Barbara Jean Monroe and they performed every Friday after lunch in the high school auditorium. Barbara said they stole the show every week.
At the age of 14, Carl would catch the Greyhound Bus at Cecil Butcher’s Store in Maynardville, Tennessee, to Knoxville and go either to WROL for Cas Walker’s Show or to the Mid-Day Merry-Go-Round. Carl’s first radio show appearance was at WNOX on their “The Stars of Tomorrow” in 1939-1940.
Carl’s first professional show (where he was paid) was in 1944 on WROL Radio. It was a Cas Walker remote where Carl played bass. He was with the Cas Walker Show the rest of the summer in 1944 ’til school began.
As WWII was still surging, Carl joined the Navy during his last year of high school and served 1-1/2 years, and was discharged in the summer of 1946. Carl wrote his sister Anna that he was tired of beans three times a day on his ship.
After returning home Carl joined the Brewster Brothers, who also entertained on The Cas Walker Show. Carl next joined Molly O’Day from 1947 through 1948. Molly O’Day had Carl play at her Columbia recording session on December 28, 1947. This was his first professional recording session.
Molly O’ Day and her husband decided to go into the ministry and sing only gospel. Carl then joined Archie Campbell from 1948-1949. During his time with Archie Campbell, Carl stopped by Lath Wyrick’s Radio and TV shop located across from Cooke’s Funeral Home and had Lath and his son, Robert Wyrick, record five songs on Lath’s record recorder.
These recordings were taken to Nashville by his friend Speedy Krise and given to Jack Starr at WSM and Don Law at Columbia. Columbia soon signed Carl to a contract. WSM put him on the air and very soon Carl was on the Grand Ole Opry as a guest on Hank Williams’ Duck Head Overalls Show. Hank and Carl became close friends.
To be continued in the May issue.