Wordsmith (3)

Smokey Carter (aka Wordsmith, Woodward Emery Smith, Phil Smith, F-Word, Steve Satyr, Steve Smith, Joe Sixpack, "Hal", Steve Sarder) was born in Stambaugh, Michigan the same year that cancer took Humphrey Bogart. There he was quickly weaned from the milk of his young Swedish mother and put on a steady diet of hillbilly and mountain music. Smokie's father had a taste for Hank Sr. and honky tonks, which young Smokie inherited. He received his first guitar, a Sears Silvertone, in the second grade, and began to take lessons from a great aunt. He also learned to play the trumpet and played briefly with his school band. Carter's extended maternal family was peopled with many talented individuals, including an aunt and uncle that performed locally as a country music duo. Singing and the playing of instruments often punctuated family gatherings. As a youth Smokie listened frequently to WILS radio from Chicago, the signal bouncing easily up Lake Michigan to the western Upper Peninsula. As a result his musical tastes broadened to include pop, acid rock, metal, and fusion. In high school he formed a band called Free Flight, playing a borrowed bass guitar, and singing covers and original rock. By the mid seventies Smokie came under the influence of the music of Bob Marley, and explored reggae, ska, mento, blue beat, and other Afro-Caribbean music. Married in 1979 to his high school sweet heart, Carter was divorced in 1982. During this period he began writing songs influenced strongly by the styles of the Caribbean music he had been devouring. In 1984 he co-founded the reggae/ska group Bop Harvey, in East Lansing, later moving with the band to Rhode Island, recording five studio albums, and playing extensive national tours, ending up with an appearance on the Late Nite with Conan O'Brien Show in April of 1994. After the dissolution of Bop Harvey, Carter formed Daddy Longlegs, along with Steve E Fex, with whom he had a previous association in the blues/psychedelic experiment, The Aids Babies. Daddy Longlegs made a five-year effort until 1999, including two studio releases on the independent Dirty Needle Records. Fex and Carter thought of the Harvestmen as a musical alter ego to Daddy Longlegs, originally conceiving of a "skagrass ensemble". (A certain species of crane fly native to North America is known in various regions and in various vernaculars as 'daddy long legs' or 'harvestmen'.) Although the idea was never executed formally, it fermented for all those years in the mind of Carter, as he began to dredge through songs that had never fit into any of his previous musical groups. After an extended period in which Smokie took time away from playing, writing, and performing, but in which he broadened his tastes as a listener to include blues, classical music and avante garde jazz, he saw four performances by Doc Watson at the National Folk Festival in East Lansing. He was so moved both by those performances and by meeting Doc afterwards, he picked up his guitar again, began working through his catalogue of older songs, and started writing new ones. The Harvestmen showcases Smokie's recent songwriting. Carter brings a long history of playing live music and an incredible knack for writing and singing songs that you just can't get out of your head.