Artist Bios
Connie Smith
Connie Smith was born to sing on August 14, 1941 in Elkhart,
Indiana. Although originally from Indiana, she spent her early
years around Hinton, West Virginia and then grew up in southern
Ohio.
Following her high school graduation, she began singing
locally at area frolics and on area television shows. It was at
the country music park, Frontier Ranch, near Columbus, Ohio
where Connie met Grand Ole Opry Star Bill Anderson. Anderson
heard her perform and was impressed with her singing. Six months
later Anderson invited her to Nashville to be a guest on the
Ernest Tubb Midnite Jamboree. Within a year following her first
visit to Music City, Connie was signed to RCA Victor Records by
Chet Atkins and released the first recording of her career. The
song, Once A Day, topped the charts at number one where it
stayed for an unprecedented eight weeks.
Smith’s recording of Once A Day became the first debut single
in country music history by a female artist to reach number one,
a record that Smith maintained for the next 25 years. Her
self-titled LP also reached number one, and served as the first
of over 50 albums Smith has recorded to date.
Along with her string of hit singles and albums, she became a
solid box office contender and appeared in a series of what are
now regarded as country cult classic films. Connie appeared in
Las Vegas Hillbillies, Second Fiddle to a Steel Guitar, Hell On
Wheels, and co-starred with Marty Robbins and Doodles Weaver in
The Road to Nashville.
The wake of Connie’s success carried her onto the stage of
WSM’s Grand Ole Opry as a featured guest performer. Her first 22
performances resulted in 22 encores. On August 21, 1965 Connie
Smith was welcomed as a member of the Grand Ole Opry family. The
king of country music, Roy Acuff gave her the title of “The
Sweetheart of the Grand Ole Opry.”
In a matter of four years Connie Smith evolved from a local
housewife to one of the top artists in country music. She was
referred to by fans and critics alike as “Country Music’s
Cinderella.” However, in the midst of one of Nashville’s most
notable ascents, Smith was by her own design a reluctant star.
Her main priority was her family. Among the many changes over
the past four years, a major change in Connie Smiths life
occurred in the spring of 1968; she became a born again
Christian. Her life as a new child of God and some of her
musical and personal decisions during this period are more often
than not, the point in Smith’s story where the facts go askew.
The most common myth being that when she
became a Christian, she began a ministry, and quit singing
country music to be a gospel singer. Smith states, “Becoming a
Christian changed my life and gave me new life. It added depth
to me and my music as well, whether I sing a country song or a
sacred song. However, I have never thought of myself as anything
but a country singer.
“By this time in my life I had my five children and there
simply wasn’t enough of me to go around. I had my family, my
faith and my music. Something had to give and I had a choice to
make. Giving up the first two wasn’t an option. At the time, I
had a house full of babies and like most young mothers I didn’t
realize the situation was temporary. I made a decision to stop
recording and touring. The majority of my performances were
limited to the Grand Ole Opry. I knew that decision would affect
my career and not in a positive way. But I’ve always been at
perfect peace with that decision. However, when my youngest of
five started kindergarten I realized that it was those same
babies who were now growing up and needed to be clothed, fed and
put through school. That was the deciding factor for me to start
touring again. After all of the kids were grown and the last one
moved away from home, I then felt I was free to pursue my love
for music, recording and songwriting which is something I’d
seldom had time for.”
As the ninth decade of the twentieth century rolled on, so
did Connie Smith. After a chance encounter with fellow country
star, Marty Stuart, she asked him if he’d be interested in
working with her. They co-wrote most of the 1996 self titled
Warner Brothers project which Stuart co-produced. Their working
relationship became an unexpected romance and today, they have
been married for more than a decade. They continue to
collaborate as artists and songwriters. Smith and Stuart have
now written more than 40 songs together. Two of particular note
are “Farmer’s Blues” and “Hearts Like Ours.” “Farmers’ Blues” is
the song that Stuart recorded with Merle Haggard. It was
included in Stuart’s duets projects entitled Compadres. “Hearts
Like Ours,” one of their rare duets is also featured on the same
project.
In 2000, Smith re-assembled an archetypal country band using
the template of her original Sundowners from the 1960s. The
newly minted combo is regarded as one of the last remaining
authentic country bands in existence. In an era of country music
whose point of reference is more the Rolling Stones than George
Jones, The Sundowners are a defiant hillbilly force that stand
as a monument to classic country music. They back Smith with a
fiery wall of steel guitar-drenched twang that’s cooled by an
endless stream of telecaster teardrops.
In 2002, Smith was voted in at No. 9 on CMT’s Greatest Women
of Country Music. Connie Smith’s favorite male country singer,
George Jones, returns the compliment by naming her as his
favorite female country singer of all time. Dolly Parton has
also credited Smith by once saying, “There’s only three real
female singers; Barbara Streisand, Linda Ronstadt and Connie
Smith. The rest of us are only pretending.”
In 2003, Smith joined forces with Opry sister Sharon White
Skaggs and fellow country star Barbara Fairchild. The trio
released a Gospel album titled Love Never Fails. The project was
produced by bluegrass icon Ricky Skaggs and was nominated for a
Dove Award by the Gospel Music Association.
Fans of Connie Smith will soon have new projects from her to
listen to. She and Stuart have been writing and gathering songs
and as Stuart puts it, “We are well on our journey back into the
recording studio to begin work on one of the three projects that
we have in mind to do. The first is a traditional country
collection; in wings are a gospel set and an acoustic offering.”
Connie and her band, The Sundowners, still maintain a regular
concert schedule as well as appearances on the Grand Ole Opry.
She can also be seen as a regular on Stuart’s new, weekly
television series, “The Marty Stuart Show,” that airs on
Saturday nights on the RFD network.
Visit Connie Smith's website at:
www.conniesmithmusic.com
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