Adam Smith

Artist Information

Biography

Singer-Songwriter Adam Smith is a natural. Born in Big Stone Gap, Virginia, raised in Cloverlick, Kentucky, and discovered on the streets of Nashville, Tennessee, Adam is self-taught and naturally inspired to create his moving, original music.

He discovered the piano on his own as a 7-year-old in the sanctuary of the old Baptist church deep in the woods of Cloverlick. Soon he was playing whenever he could, composing tunes by ear—and by sight. “It was a visual thing for me,” Adam says. “I would see a pattern on the keyboard and play it. I could see shapes in the keys, and the shapes would make music. It was a fun game to me. It still is.”

To this day, Adam only writes music that makes “pretty patterns” on the keyboard. “It may sound good, but if it doesn’t make beautiful shapes, it doesn’t give me the same satisfaction.”

A visual artist as well as musical, Adam easily combines the two forms.
“To most people, visuals are just visual things, and sounds are just sound things. I’ve been painting and drawing as long as I’ve been making music. I think it runs on the same current. It all comes from the same place.”

Influenced early by an eclectic mix of female artists such as Cyndi Lauder, Amy Grant, and Wilson Philips, it wasn’t until Adam heard Joni Mitchell’s “Blue” album that he began to put lyrics to his songs. “It changed my life and the way I think about and hear music.”

Picking up the guitar and teaching himself to play around the age of 18, he eventually began performing regularly at open mic nights, beginning at the Preservation Pub in Knoxville, TN. “That was a formative time of my life, when
I gained so much experience and confidence playing in front of an audience.”

His visual approach to music carries through to the guitar, but with a twist.
“With the guitar I can’t see the instrument like I can the piano. So I feel the shapes instead of visualizing them.” A remarkable way to make music, with uniquely emotive results.

During his younger days, Adam eked out a living working odd jobs at places like the local Arby’s or Family Dollar stores, all the while playing his instruments, visualizing his music and writing his songs. He eventually found himself in Harlan, Kentucky when he began to nurture a desire to move to the Big City and be discovered on Broadway—the street of dreams in Nashville, not the Big Apple.

Tuesday, came in Wednesday, got my $200 check and was gone that night to Tennessee.” Arriving at 5 AM, Adam explored the city on foot, feeling a new happiness and freedom to be in Music City. He began asking where Blue Bird was, the open-mic mecca, and soon made his way to the sidewalks of Broadway, singing for passersby and peddling a 5-song CD he’d manage to record some months earlier. “I was horribly nervous and frightened by the experience, but it wasn’t long before someone noticed me and took me under their wing.”

Freshly recorded, all original songs. This is the work of Adam Smith, a musical visionary, in a very real sense.

Instrumentation

Adam Smith - acoustic guitar, keyboard/piano, harp

Discography

Another Way to Get to Heaven - debut CD, expected release January 2010

Links

• Facebook
• Bandromeda
• YouTube

Audio

• Another Way to Get to Heaven
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• Fallen Angel
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• Poets
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• A Better Place for Love to Live
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• Do You Feel the Same
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• Hard to Sleep
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• Lovin' You
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• Sweet Realities
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• The Ways of Love
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• Come Back to Me
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Lyrics

• Cupid
• The Ways of Love
• Another Way to Get to Heaven
• Fallen Angel
• Come Back to Me
• A Friend is a Stranger
• Poets

Video

Photo Gallery

Press

• Adam's debut album is heartbreakingly beautiful [+ Show ]
  

  "Adam's debut album, 'Another Way to Get to Heaven," is heartbreakingly beautiful.... I find myself ..."Adam's debut album, 'Another Way to Get to Heaven," is heartbreakingly beautiful.... I find myself both wanting to hear through the entirety of this album in the same heated rush, and also not wanting to finish listening...forever...because it's so damn good....Adam Smith's songwriting is simple, beautiful, clear, and honest...Genuine love songs/heart songs born of his survival of a great many things. His lyrics are stunning, bold. His voice is angelic. This music just makes me cry with the truth of it all, and the importance of it all.... I'm reminded of the fact that the 'universal' is so very much to be found in the 'personal.' Adam Smith is very prophetic/sage-like in that hippie sort of a way."

• The recording blew me away. [+ Show ]
  

  "I recall hearing James Taylor for the first time. I sought out his album purposely after reading ab..."I recall hearing James Taylor for the first time. I sought out his album purposely after reading about his association with The Beatles, his romance with Carly Simon and his unfortunate battle with Heroin addiction. In the end It was his compelling voice and songs that held my interest. When I first heard the story of Adam Smith;(his singing for tips on the street corners of downtown Nashville, Tennessee, being discovered and taken into a small recording studio in Sedona, Arizona,) I hoped for a musical experience I could make favorable comments upon. The recording blew me away. Adam Smith had created a CD, almost completely on his own, that left me with the same transcendental feeling I had felt upon my first exposure to James Taylor. Singing in a voice snatched out of an Angel Choir, Adam Smith projected Love and Life songs at once traditionally singer/songwriter and at the same time, poetic and honestly observant of the human condition and it’s effect on a wise, young man. I felt the need to become involved with Adam, and so I did the final mixes on his self made CD. Thus began a professional relationship that is developing and growing, day by day. I believe in Adam Smith and have committed myself to seeing to it that Adam never sings on a street corner or counts nickels out of a baseball cap, again."
  

• I can't get enough of Adam Smith [+ Show ]
  

  "Recording is always exciting when good songs are involved and working on Adam's record was a joy. ..."Recording is always exciting when good songs are involved and working on Adam's record was a joy.
  Song after song after song, I can't get enough of Adam Smith."
  

• "Another Way" blew me away. [+ Show ]
  

  I think Adam is a remarkable talent -- "Another Way" blew me away. What time does Adam and Co....I think Adam is a remarkable talent -- "Another Way" blew me away.
  
  
  What time does Adam and Co. play on Tuesday?
  
  
  Kindest regards,
  
  
  Jeffrey
  
  
  
  

Setlist

Adam's sets rannge from 30-minutes to 60-minutes and contain mostly original songs but he supports each set with covers appropriate to the audience.

Typical set list:
Another Way to Get to Heaven
Bad Luck
A Better Tomorrow
So Simple Now
Soften the Blow
Hard to Sleep
A Better Place for Love to Live
Storms (cover - Fleetwood Mac)
Sweet Realities
When I say Goodbye

Basic Requirements

Calendar