Bio/Tour:
Country artist-songwriter, Daniel Smith, loves to move people with music. Combining words and melodies to transform sound into emotional reactions is what he lives for. Within Daniel Smith’s rugged six-foot-five frame lies the heart of a poet and the warm, sincere and comforting voice of a best friend. Like those of Kris Kristofferson, Smith’s lyrics are literate and well-defined meditations on life’s uneven surfaces. He wrote or co-wrote every song on his very first album, “American Made”, including the well loved, “Thank You (Tribute to the American Soldier)”.
Smith grew up in Taylor Mill, Kentucky, a small town just across the Ohio River from Cincinnati. Although Cincinnati has long been a center of country and bluegrass music, Smith says his inspiration came from his parents’ record collection, which tended to be heavy on albums by Eddy Arnold, Conway Twitty, the Statler Brothers and the gospel-singing Gaithers. Like most boys his age, Smith also developed a strong affinity for rock music. In college, he began playing in his fraternity’s rock band, No Exit, which made a sizable name for itself in the clubs and bars of Cincinnati and northern Kentucky.
Eventually we broke up, Smith says, and I kind of fell away from music for a while. But I finally realized that making music was what I wanted to do with my life. And I found myself drawn to country music. So I started writing songs and just getting to know the business.
At its best, country music rises above the fluid sounds of steel guitars and quaint postcard images of home. It finds wisdom in the commonplace, joy in absurd moment and strength in unblinking self-awareness. This is Daniel Smiths territoryand the landscape he shares with every song. |