Stone Poetry

Stone Poetry is a band with visions of past, present and future woven into a timeless fabric of sound and rhythm. The band’s roots go back as far as the late sixties and seventies when frontman and songwriter Daniel Smith was honing his songwriting chops against the backdrop of the Vietnam war on the island of Guam in Micronesia.

Eventually, he found his way to the Northern Rockies and began landing folk gigs playing in clubs and bars along an arc that stretched from the resort town of Big Sky in Montana to the Pacific Northwest. It was Smith’s keen interest in science that pulled him into rocks. In the ensuing years he left the professional music scene, acquired a masters degree in geology, and then started a multimedia design business, Earthtalk Studios, Inc. in Bozeman, Montana.

Many of the songs on Stone Poetry’s debut album, Into the Great Unknown, were written in the mid to late seventies when Daniel lived and breathed music and powder snow, while playing evenings as a solo acoustic artist and powder hounding during the days, at Big Sky Montana.

Here’s how Stone Poetry was born: In 2000, Smith ran, by chance, into old friend and seasoned guitar virtuoso Dan Krza at a local coffee shop and the two decided to get together and begin to develop a rock & roll stage show centered around the theme of exploration and adventure.

Soon thereafter, Krza introduced Smith to bassist Russ Barabe and the three became the musical core of Stone Poetry. Later, the band added vocalist Kate Regan Ciari and drummer Mark Sullivan to complete the ensemble.

Speaking of Stone Poetry’s CD, Into the Great Unknown, Yellowstone Public Radio’s Scott Prinzig wrote, “Looking for some folksy rock ‘n roll with lyrics rooted in history? Bozeman’s Stone Poetry will take you Into the Great Unknown with their debut CD full of songs that touch on Galileo, Ben Franklin, Lewis and Clark, and even outer space.

Well known environmental author and music critic Todd Wilkinson wrote, “It's safe to assume that Meriwether Lewis, William Clark, and their buckskin-clad Corps of Discovery weren't listening to proto rock-n-roll 200 years ago as they traveled across the American West. But what if? Today, add a drum kit to their resurrected spirit, an electric guitar and bass, maybe a reggae riff here, a bit of Jazz fusion there, perhaps a Southern rock power chord and a pluck of bluegrass, then meld in a chorus of imaginative lyrics, and the sweet harmonization of Daniel Smith and Kate Regan Ciari and what you've got is … well, what you've got, Pilgrim, is a band unlike any other getting radio play.”

One fan recently wrote, “Your music reaches the soul - thoughts and sounds that surpass the present and remind of the past and of possibilities not too far out of reach. Thank you for sharing your music.”