Red Smiley (1924 to 1972) was the lead singer and rhythm guitarist of Reno and Smiley, one of the first great bluegrass bands. He worked beside banjo player Don Reno from 1951 to 1964 and again in the early 1970s. For twelve years he hosted a weekday television show in Roanoke, Virginia, that ran for more than 3,000 broadcasts. The IBMA put him in its hall of fame in 1992.
Why Smiley matters
Smiley showed that a bluegrass rhythm guitarist could carry a band without playing a single flashy break. His low, warm lead voice gave Reno and Smiley a sound closer to country music than most bands of the 1950s. His guitar runs did not copy the standard bluegrass fills. They were his own, and they fit the songs. Pickers who want a band to feel solid can learn a lot from him.
Life and career
Arthur Lee Smiley was born on May 17, 1924, in Marshall, North Carolina. He played on WROL radio in Knoxville as a teenager. He joined the U.S. Army in 1943. In World War II a bomb wounded him in Sicily, and he lost a lung. He spent two years in recovery at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.
In 1949 Smiley joined fiddler Tommy Magness and the Tennessee Buddies in Roanoke, Virginia. There he met Don Reno, who had just left Bill Monroe’s Blue Grass Boys. The two recorded with Magness for Federal Records in 1951. In 1952 Syd Nathan of King Records offered to record the pair on their own. That first session produced I’m Using My Bible for a Roadmap.
Reno and Smiley worked as a recording act at first. They played their first live show together in Richmond, Virginia, on Easter weekend of 1955. Bass player John Palmer and fiddler Mack Magaha joined that year. The band recorded its first full session as the Tennessee Cut-Ups in August 1956. On December 31, 1956, they started Top O’ the Morning, the first early morning country music show on television in Roanoke. It aired every weekday. In 1961 the band charted with Don’t Let Your Sweet Love Die, Love Oh Love, Oh Please Come Home, and Jimmy Caught the Dickens.
The band split in November 1964. Smiley kept the television show going with his own group, the Bluegrass Cut-Ups, until the show ended in 1968. His war injuries and diabetes cost him close to 100 pounds in the decade after 1955. He rejoined Reno and Bill Harrell for tours starting in 1969, and the group recorded a last album, Letter Edged in Black, for Wango Records in May 1971. Smiley had mild heart attacks that year. He died on January 2, 1972, at age 47.
Playing style
Smiley played rhythm guitar. He did not take lead breaks. His job was to hold the beat behind Don Reno’s banjo and Mack Magaha’s fiddle. He did that with a clean boom-chuck strum and bass runs that led the band into the next chord. The Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame describes his runs as different from the typical bluegrass fills of the time.
His guitar was a Martin D-45. That model has a big, full low end, which suited a player whose main tool was the bass run.
His voice mattered as much as his guitar. He sang lead in a lower range than most bluegrass singers. That gave Reno and Smiley a smooth sound on ballads and gospel songs. Reno sang the high harmony above him.
Influences and legacy
Smiley grew up on the Blue Sky Boys, the Delmore Brothers, Wiley Morris, and Ernest Tubb. You can hear the brother duet tradition in the way he and Reno blended. He worked with Zeke Morris and Red Rector early on, and the folklorist Bascom Lamar Lunsford was a family friend.
Reno and Smiley wrote much of their own material. Smiley shares credit on Brighter Mansion Over There, I’m Gone, Long Gone, and Maybe You Will Change Your Mind. Mandolin player David Grisman played in Smiley’s band early in his own career. After Smiley’s death, Bill Harrell took his place beside Reno for about a dozen years. The IBMA inducted Reno and Smiley together into its hall of fame in 1992.
Signature tunes and songs
I’m Using My Bible for a Roadmap Don’t Let Your Sweet Love Die Love Oh Love, Oh Please Come Home I’m Gone, Long Gone Brighter Mansion Over There.
Essential recordings
Sacred Songs (King, 1957) Bluegrass Hits (Dot, 1963) Letter Edged in Black, with Don Reno and Bill Harrell (Wango, 1971) A Day in the Country (Copper Creek, 1989)
Awards and honors
International Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame, with Don Reno (1992)
Watch and listen
Reno and Smiley perform I’m Using My Bible for a Roadmap, the song from their first King session. Listen to how Smiley’s lead voice sits under Reno’s tenor.
What to learn from Smiley
Learn I’m Using My Bible for a Roadmap. It is a simple gospel song in a jam-friendly key, and it teaches you to sing lead while you keep the rhythm. The technique to steal is the bass run that walks the band into a chord change. Play a Reno and Smiley record and listen only to the guitar. Copy the runs he uses between the vocal lines. They are short, they land on the downbeat, and they never step on the singer.
Sources
Arthur Lee (Red) Smiley, Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame and Museum Red Smiley, Blue Ridge National Heritage Area Reno and Smiley, Wikipedia Red Smiley, Wikipedia Reno, Don and Red Smiley, BluegrassBios.com
Related players
See the guitar players hub and the guitar guide for more rhythm players. Smiley learned the trade beside Tommy Magness and played for years with Mack Magaha. Carter Stanley and Lester Flatt held the same job in the other first-generation bands.