Kenny Smith (born 1967) is a flatpicking guitarist from Nine Mile, Indiana. He won IBMA Guitar Player of the Year in 1998 and 1999 while playing with the Lonesome River Band. He and his wife Amanda have led the Kenny and Amanda Smith Band since 2001, and the group won IBMA Emerging Artist of the Year in 2003. His tune Studebaker, from his 1997 solo album, is a flatpicking standard.
Why Smith matters
Smith showed a generation of pickers that clean beats fast. His solos are fluid and powerful, but every note speaks. He came up through the contest circuit, took the guitar chair in one of the top bands of the 1990s, and then built a band around his own playing and Amanda’s voice. Studebaker sits on the list of tunes flatpickers learn to prove they can play, right beside Church Street Blues.
Life and career
Smith was born on September 19, 1967, in Nine Mile, Indiana. He started guitar at age four. His father played fiddle and drilled him on rhythm, and his brother played banjo. He learned fiddle tunes by listening to Norman Blake records.
In the early 1990s he entered the national flatpicking contests. He placed second at MerleFest in 1991 and won it in 1992. At the National Flat Pick Guitar Championship in Winfield, Kansas, he placed third in 1992, second in 1993, and third in 1994. In 1993 he turned professional with Claire Lynch and the Front Porch String Band.
In 1996 Smith joined the Lonesome River Band, taking the place of Tim Austin. He played on Finding the Way and Talkin’ to Myself and won IBMA Guitar Player of the Year in 1998 and 1999. Sugar Hill released his solo album Studebaker in 1997. He left the band in 2001.
Smith met Amanda at a Lonesome River Band show in 1995, and they married soon after. Their band’s first album, Slowly But Surely, came out in 2001. The Kenny and Amanda Smith Band won IBMA Emerging Artist of the Year in 2003 and recorded House Down the Block (2004), Always Never Enough (2005), Tell Someone (2007), and Live and Learn (2008) for Rebel. Amanda won IBMA Female Vocalist of the Year in 2014. In 2011 Smith released Return, an all-instrumental album on Gat3 with Adam Steffey, Barry Bales, Adam Hurt, and Aubrey Haynie. He is also a founding member of the Band of Ruhks with Ronnie Bowman and Don Rigsby. In 2017 he launched KennySmithGuitar.com with free lessons.
Playing style
Smith plays clean, fluid, powerful solos with syncopated phrasing and chord voicings that go past the usual bluegrass shapes. His father’s rhythm drills show in his time. His lines sit in the pocket rather than rushing ahead of it, which makes him a strong band guitarist as well as a soloist.
His influences run outside bluegrass. He names jazz pianist Eddie Costa, country guitarists Clint Strong and Hank Garland, and steel players Buddy Emmons and Leon Rhodes. Those players shaped his note choice and his chord voicings more than any bluegrass guitarist did. He plays a 1935 Martin D-18 he has owned since 1995 and a 1948 Regal jumbo, and he uses Blue Chip picks.
Influences and legacy
Smith learned fiddle tunes from Norman Blake records. He played beside Ronnie Bowman and Don Rigsby in the Lonesome River Band and joined them again in the Band of Ruhks. He recorded Return with Adam Steffey, Barry Bales, and Aubrey Haynie, and his IBMA-winning tracks include the AcuTab Sessions with the era’s top pickers.
He teaches at Steve Kaufman’s Acoustic Kamp, Acoustic Music Camp, and other workshops, and AcuTab published a two-DVD set of his playing. Studebaker has become a standard that other guitarists cover and teach.
Signature tunes and songs
Studebaker You Know That I Would Shoutin’ Time.
Essential recordings
Studebaker (Sugar Hill, 1997) House Down the Block, Kenny and Amanda Smith Band (Rebel, 2004) Tell Someone, Kenny and Amanda Smith Band (Rebel, 2007) Return (Gat3, 2011)
Awards and honors
MerleFest guitar contest, second place (1991) MerleFest guitar contest, first place (1992) National Flat Pick Guitar Championship, Winfield, third place (1992) National Flat Pick Guitar Championship, Winfield, second place (1993) National Flat Pick Guitar Championship, Winfield, third place (1994) IBMA Guitar Player of the Year (1998) IBMA Guitar Player of the Year (1999) IBMA Instrumental Recorded Performance of the Year, Knee Deep in Bluegrass: The AcuTab Sessions (2001) IBMA Emerging Artist of the Year, Kenny and Amanda Smith Band (2003) IBMA Album of the Year, Celebration of Life: Musicians Against Childhood Cancer (2006)
Watch and listen
Smith plays Studebaker, the tune that made his name. Watch how each note gets its full value at speed.
What to learn from Smith
Learn Studebaker. It is a guitar tune, written for the instrument, and it teaches syncopation and string crossing in one package. Play it at half speed until every note rings. The technique to steal is his clean attack. Smith does not blur notes to fake speed. Record yourself on a fiddle tune, listen for the notes that did not sound, and slow down until they all do. That habit, more than any lick, is what separates his playing from the pack.
Sources
Meet Kenny, Kenny Smith Guitar Kenny Smith, IBMA award recipients Kenny Smith (bluegrass), Wikipedia Kenny Smith guitar album, Bluegrass Today Kenny Smith, D’Addario artists Smith, Kenny and Amanda, BluegrassBios.com Walnut Valley Festival winners archive, alphabetical (PDF)
Related players
See the guitar players hub and the guitar guide for more flatpickers. Smith learned from Norman Blake records. Josh Williams followed him as a band guitarist who won IBMA Guitar Player of the Year, and Steve Kaufman hosts him at the Acoustic Kamp.