Guitarist, Interrupted, Part Two: Conversation & Cocktails with Johnny Smith
The first-anniversary celebration for Call & Response rocks on
Hello again, subscribers. It means everything that so many of you chose to renew paid subscriptions in Call & Response’s first anniversary week. Thanks for sticking around.
One of those subscribers, Bill Frisell, wrote me with appreciation for part one of my 2009 Johnny Smith interview. I’m always happy to hear from Bill. His recent message was especially fortuitous because Bill’s 2018 Johnny Smith tribute album with Mary Halvorson, The Maid With The Flaxen Hair, was already mentioned in this part two introduction.
I’d been struck by Bill’s liner notes confession of finding Johnny’s playing corny back when he studied with him in 1970. Bill may be embarrassed about his youthful disregard now, but he certainly wasn’t alone in that attitude. Guitarists Wes Montgomery and Jim Hall were more often idolized by younger players. When Johnny left New York in 1958, his music already was far from the cutting edge. Over his decades in Colorado Springs, Johnny became perhaps more famous for the guitars he designed than for how he’d played one. Like many, Bill Frisell only heard the beauty of Johnny’s musicianship later.
I asked Bill what exactly he’s come to appreciate in Johnny’s playing over the years. Bill wrote back with this:
There is such clarity in his playing.
Attention to detail.
What a beautiful sound.
Nobody sounds like that.
He sounds like himself.
His technique and mastery of the instrument is extraordinary. I guess that’s enough right there. But. That’s not it at all. It’s not about speed and dexterity. It’s about beauty and being able to tell a story. He tells his own story.
We’re still realizing the depth and breadth of Johnny Smith’s influence—and not only in terms of his guitar playing. Johnny’s kindness radiated into the wider world. Bassist and L.A. studio phenomenon Carol Kaye once told me how much it meant to her when Johnny sang the praises of his fellow New York studio guitarist Mary Osborne, a woman who flourished, like Carol, in a man’s world.
For more on Johnny’s life, see Lin Flanagan’s 2018 biography Moonlight in Vermont.
Please do check out part one of the interview, if you haven’t. And now for the rest of the show: Johnny as a responsible gun owner, more on his life as a working musician, Johnny in action as a bartender, and some talk on the guitar he designed for Gibson. Colorado guitarist and Johnny friend/fan Alan Joseph contributes much to the discussion here.
Paid subscribers will find interview audio at the end of the transcript.
Yesterday afternoon, my son and I paid our respects at Johnny’s grave in Fairview Cemetery, which is about a mile and a half from our home. Turning up there without at least a shooter of good vodka was an oversight. Later today I’ll return to place some hospitality at the grave.
Guitarist, Interrupted, Part Two: Conversation & Cocktails with Johnny Smith
Once again, paid subscribers will find interview audio at the end of the transcript.
Johnny: My wife [Sandy, he remarried in 1960] and I opened the store in 1961. Like I say, it didn't make any money for quite a few years, but I had to shuttle back and forth to New York to record and play an engagement and bring a few shekels to put the beans on the table.
Michelle: Did any of your New York music friends come out here to find you?
Johnny: Oh yeah. So many of them. Like Stan Getz, we did a couple of concerts at the Pikes Peak Center and he was at the Ark [Stan voluntarily checked himself into The Ark, a rehab clinic in Colorado Springs] and so I saw him quite a bit before he died. And George Duvivier, the bass player, he hated to fly, and every time he'd take his big Cadillac that held his bass to the West Coast, he'd always stop here. Quite a few guys.
Michelle: So you left New York just before the bossa nova, sort of, phenomenon, happened, right?
Johnny: Well, that was luck with timing, because at the time I left New York in 1958, everything had started to crevulate. The networks fired all their . . . they were required to have over 100 musicians on full-time staff, each of the networks, and that was all going. And that was the beginning of rhythm and blues and rock and roll. And I felt so sorry. These very fine players were hired to come in and record some of this really bad music, just to play footballs on the violin and honk incredible badly on the wind instruments. I was very fortunate that that was the time that I left.
Johnny: If you're serious about playing the guitar and jazz, you can't begrudge or you can't envy or be influenced by huge amounts of money that comes with very little talent. You have to make up your mind, don't ever harbor any any hate or envy for being in that category.
Michelle: Is there anything that did impress you over the years? I assume you're not a fan of, for example, jazz fusion.
Johnny: You know, I've always drawn a line in music between bad and good, and that goes for all different kinds of music. It goes not only for jazz, it goes for symphonic music, it goes for rock and roll, country and western, there's good, and I draw the line bad.
Michelle: Have you listened to any of the recordings that some younger guitarists have dedicated to you?
Johnny: Oh, yeah. There's some very fine guitarists, like Jack Wilkins, and just out here was Gene Bertoncini, that Alan Joseph worked with.
[Break for a phone call—the connective question here was not recorded]
Johnny: If you're serious about playing the guitar and jazz, you can't begrudge or you can't envy or be influenced by huge amounts of money that comes with very little talent. You have to make up your mind, don't ever harbor any hate or envy for being in that category.
Michelle: It sounds like you're pretty satisfied with the way that your life has worked out.
Johnny: I keep coming back to the fact that I am so fortunate because every dream that I had when I was young came true. Every dream. My slate is clean. When they wheel me out, I cannot say I wish I had done this or I wish I had done that. No. My life has been completely fulfilled And fortunately the dream that came true was uh, I never dreamed of making bundles of money.
Alan: That's a good point.
Michelle: You know you seem like you're very healthy and spry for a man of your age, and you mentioned back in New York staying out in clubs until 5 a.m. I imagine that with that life, you would play a set, then you'd stop and drink, play a set, stop and drink, play a set and drink.
Johnny: There's very few really old musicians that grew up or worked in New York for years. Being out in this place was just a huge blessing.
That Colorado Lifestyle
Michelle: You mentioned that you like fishing, deep sea fishing. Do you do fly fishing out here?
Johnny: Oh yeah, as a matter of fact, last weekend I had my grandson, his wife, and a four-year-old boy from Kentucky. I won't say any more about that, except it's kind of hard for an old fogey like me to come down to a four-year-old's level. But anyway, I love 'em, and they're back there now, so this weekend I'm going to take some R&R and go with some friends that have a cabin up near Leadville and do some fishing.
Michelle: Nice.
Johnny: A little R&R, you know.
Michelle: And did you continue flying out here as well? Eisenhower had already bought the Air Force Academy land, right? He bought that—when did he buy that land? 1952? Was the Air Force Academy already established up there when you moved out here?
Johnny: They were just finishing building when I came here in 1958, yeah.
Michelle: That chapel must have been quite a shock out here. It's such an architectural oddity.
Johnny: Yeah, it's beautiful.
Michelle: It's gorgeous.
Johnny: You probably know it's made out of aluminum from deceased aircraft. They took all this metal from big bombers and everything, and they made that.
Alan: You know, I didn't know that.
Michelle: You didn’t know that? Now you're going to see it totally differently.
Alan: I see it totally differently every time I see it. Johnny, am I mistaken . . . wasn't there a small airport close by here at one time?
Johnny: Well, there was a small airport south near Fountain that was called Pikes Peak Airport, but it was on the approach end of the main runway for Colorado Springs Airport. So they closed that down, but there's another one out east, Meadow Lake, and I taught flying out there, too.
The trick to working with vocalists
Michelle: You had a chance to work with some pretty good jazz vocalists, didn't you?
Johnny: Well, I did three albums, one with Ruth Price, and one with, oh, gosh.
Alan: I already looked at Beverly Kenney. Johnny: Yeah, Beverly Kenney, thank you. Jeri Southern?
Johnny: Yes, and Jeri Southern. But I accompanied many opera singers. As a matter of fact, one of the shows that I was doing at the time I left New York was with Patrice Munsel. I did a lot of radio shows accompanying singers like Jane Pickens. I enjoyed that.
Michelle: Is there a trick to working with—and I'm curious what you think about this too, since your significant other [Jana Lee Ross] is also a singer—is there a trick to working with vocalists?
Alan: You just got to play good music. You got to listen to the vocalist.
Johnny: Well, you have to supply what's missing. If you're by yourself, you have to be the whole orchestra, starting with correct bass notes and correct chords and supplying what's missing. If it comes to filling in a couple of measures, you have to do that. But I enjoyed that. I really did. I was doing a show at the time I left New York with Pat Boone, and of course, Arthur Godfrey and his friends had a Wednesday night TV show, which became very famous because that's the show that he fired Julius La Rosa on the spot.
Michelle: What for? How did that happen?
Johnny: Well, he didn't tolerate any kind of a relationship with the girl singers, and Julius La Rosa fractured that rule, and Godfrey found out about it, and fired him right on the air.
On Designing A Guitar and Pedagogy
Michelle: A lot of people know your guitar as the signature jazz guitar. And you said you just drew up a model. I don't know, playing the guitar and designing one, those are two different things, right?
Johnny: Yes. Well, at that time I was playing a D'Angelico, which was a beautiful instrument. When I decided to, you know, go with Gibson, I went down and I talked to John D'Angelico and I told him, you know, I feel bad because I'm playing yours. But he says, don't feel bad, he says, design a good guitar because I can only build so many a year and I can't supply the market. I felt there were shortcomings on the D'Angelico, which were very few, but still some. I incorporated those into designing the thing for Gibson.
Michelle: What were some of those shortcomings, if you remember?
Johnny: With the archtop guitar, most of them have a space up at the high end of the fingerboard, a space between the neck and the body. And that space kept the real high notes from sustaining. And so I designed that guitar with the neck right into the body so that the top notes would sustain.
Alan: And it worked.
Johnny: Yes, it sure did. As a matter of fact, I was very honored. Gene Bertoncini played my guitar.
Alan: Oh yeah, it sounded wonderful.
Michelle: Yeah, that was a beautiful night. I was there for that.
[Johnny’s June 25th, 2009 birthday celebration in Colorado Springs featuring guitarists Gene Bertoncini, Alan Joseph, and Dale Bruning; My now-husband Marc Neihof played bass for the event]
Johnny: Is that right?
Michelle: Yeah, I was sitting not too far behind you. It was a gorgeous evening.
Alan: They turned a lot of people away, a lot of people. One could have been a lot more people there, but they were filled up. I mean, a lot of people that I invited who actually showed up couldn't get in. It was a small room.
Johnny: Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. Yeah.
Michelle: Yeah, but it's all a testament to how many people wanted to come out and help you celebrate.
Johnny: Well, I felt very embarrassed because I don't deserve this kind of attention, and I don't like that kind of attention. I tried to talk them out of it, but they went ahead. And as it turned out, I really enjoyed seeing a lot of people that I knew, and hearing Gene Bertoncini.
Michelle: Was that a lot of your family sitting with you at the table?
Johnny: Yes, uh, my wife's brother and his wife and son and daughter were there, and his wife, uh, Jeanie, is the Assistant Attorney General for Colorado. Yeah. She was a District Attorney here in town for two terms, and she is now Assistant Attorney General.
Michelle: They seemed to be enjoying themselves the other night.
Michelle to Alan: So is there anything that you've always been too embarrassed or shy to ask Johnny?
Alan: Oh, no. Johnny has been . . . I've asked him plenty of questions, and he's always been up front. I just would say that, uh, in the music business, for one thing, it's tough to be a success, especially today. And I'm sure in a lot of ways, back in the day, in the late 40s and 50s, it was tough to be successful even there. You had to be really on it. And because you were so successful in your ventures and your guitar playing and your other things, it's just people admire that, and you have a lot of friends. I don't want to coin a phrase and say you're a legend but there's people that just have really admired your accomplishments and in their own way they probably think well, I'll never be able to be that incredible or great and they just really admire your accomplishments and that's that's just wonderful.
I'm looking here at the Johnny Smith method for guitar that he put together for Mel Bay, who is a personal friend of Johnny Smith. Johnny Smith points out that the guitar, the way it's written, all music for guitar is pretty much written wrong. It's written an octave off and he points out that the guitar is actually a bass clef and a treble clef instrument.
Johnny: Well, that's the way Schoenberg wrote and any musicians that didn't know anything about the guitar except the range, the pitch, would write in two clefs. A lot of piano players use that because it's written the way the piano is written.
The Bar Opens
Johnny: Well, would you like a drink?
Michelle: I would enjoy a drink very much. Thank you.
Alan: I'll lend you a dollar. Pay me back.
Johnny: Yeah, well, a dollar pays for your escort. And what could I mix you, my dear?
Michelle: Do you think I could get a vodka tonic, please?
Johnny: Sure.
Michelle: Thank you.
Johnny: And Alan, what would you like?
Alan: I'm going to have a vodka straight up, just martini style the way you like it.
Johnny: Sure. On the rocks, right? I'll use the glass. All right.
The Conversation Continues
Johnny to Alan: You tried the Benedetto. I'll give you something that'll shock you. I called Bob Benedetto and he and Cindy's wife are close friends. And I said, Cindy, if someone ordered that Cremona Benedetto, how much would it cost? $65,000 to have him build one of those guitars.
Alan: No mere drop in the bucket at that point.
Johnny: They've had some break-ins in the vicinity. So I had all my favorite rifles and shotguns hanging up there. And when that happened, I put them all . . . I have this big safe out in the garage. So I put them away.
Michelle: Probably better. Hey, when you've been out hunting, have you ever had any close encounters with wildlife out there?
Johnny: I had a friend in Gunnison that had a ranch that started at the Gunnison River, Highway 50, and went 28 miles back up to the top of Sawtooth Mountain. And we used to take horses up there and stay at this old cow camp and hunt horse back for all through the wilderness area. And yeah, I've seen bear. I didn't see any mountain lion. Saw bobcat. And I heard a bobcat screaming. You never heard a noise like that. We sold our cabin up at 11 Mile (reservoir) to Mel Bay and his wife, and I've seen mountain lions walking around up there.
[Johnny and Alan look through some guitar magazines]
Michelle: What is this, Vintage Guitar magazine?
Alan: It's just a basic magazine for people with too much time on their hands.
Michelle: And it's really gear heavy?
Alan: It's gear, yeah. It shows you how expensive, like you were saying, guitars have gotten for one reason or another. And there's always still a market for all the old guitars. Johnny Smith models can fetch a very good price.
Johnny: It’s just an honest guitar. That’s all.
Alan: It's basically an acoustic guitar. So if you have a nice arch-top guitar, which that design came from, sort of from the Italians, you know, like a violin, where it was just a piece of carved, piece of a tree, you know, it's carved like that. They do what they call bookmatch it, and they split it, and then they put a divider in the back, or even in the front.
But to get that acoustic sound out front, that's what Johnny was very upfront about. He really wanted to get as much acoustic tone through that little pickup as possible. So, you know, the moment a pickup hits the wood, it already changes the character of the acoustic sound. So the trick, you want to get that thing just like, if I put my lips on that microphone, it's not going to sound very good. You know, it's going to distort. And so the pickup, you know, has to be off the guitar, so he has what is called a suspended pickup. You know, it's just not touching the wood at all. As a matter of fact, there's nothing touching the wood. Even on the two pickup model. See, as you can tell, I can talk guitars a lot. But if you look close, in this one, I believe that the pickup is attached to the pickguard, as well as this one. And on the true Johnny Smiths, I believe that there's a bracket that goes to the fingerboard.
Johnny: It’s attached to the neck, not the pickguard.
[Johnny steps out for a moment]
Alan: One of the first things I did when I got here [in 1978], I went to Johnny Smith's music store and introduced myself.
Michelle: Yeah, I bet, yeah. And he was friendly.
Alan: Oh, yes.
Michelle: And you couldn't afford anything.
Alan: Not at that moment. Yeah, but I saw that cabinet of those beautiful Johnny Smiths and a couple of Gibson Super 400s and I go like, hmmn.
And actually at that time, they were very very inexpensive according to like what you get for them now. Those were like you could get a Johnny Smith model and or even a Super 400 for like even $900 to like $1500 and now those things are you know six seven times that price.
Michelle: Is there a collectors’ cult around Johnny Smith guitars? I know that, like, the Japanese will buy any year Martin guitar.
Alan: They've got a lot of Johnny Smiths in Japan. Yeah. The Japanese have really bought up a lot of that a lot of that market because the Japanese have a really strong affection for American culture but American manufacturing when it was really quality like that and they bought a lot of the guitars out from underneath the folks you know.
And just to give you another example of the craziness of all that which I've kind of finally peaked out about you know getting nice guitars, I have a few, but I don't go out there and search for them anymore. Even the catalogs, like that came from that period in 1966, just the catalogs that would show all these old Gibson guitars, they're now like $100-150 just to buy a catalog from that era. Johnny told me once that, gee Alan if I'd have known that, I had a whole cabinet full of those things.
So it's gotten out of hand, but still there's—a good guitar is a good guitar, and like Johnny says, an honest guitar, there's still people who build those guitars, and that's exciting because you can really tell the difference between a really well made guitar and a not so well made guitar.
Johnny on Darryl Goes: He’s my favorite drummer. He's a good musician and just a good timekeeper. I was on the verge of becoming suicidal when I first came out here from New York and started working up in Denver. I had this drummer that . . . he took lessons from a machine gun. And I was on the verge of taking the pipe. And Darryl walked in one night and it was like the world was lifted off of my shoulders.
Me: Who was telling stories about how they had a chance to play bass with Johnny?
Alan: That was Dale Bruning [mainly a guitarist] who played upright bass.
Johnny: He was a very good bass player, he's a good musician, and he worked with my group up in Denver for quite a long time.
Alan: And when Johnny actually played in the early days, through the 60s and throughout, he played with, I believe Bill Bastien? [Bassist] Bill Bastien, yeah. Darryl Goes, and [pianist] Neil Bridge, that was his quartet. And I just noticed this, Darryl Goes, who was the drummer? The bass player? The drummer. He's got this, that says, thanks for the doors you opened for me. And I think that's nice. I like that. It's kind of like something you would see in the Addams Family.
Johnny: He’s my favorite drummer. He's a good musician and just a good timekeeper. I was on the verge of becoming suicidal when I first came out here from New York and started working up in Denver. I had this drummer that . . . he took lessons from a machine gun. And I was on the verge of taking the pipe. And Darryl walked in one night and it was like the world was lifted off of my shoulders.
Alan: That's a good feeling. And luckily, moving here in 1978, I had the great opportunity to actually go to a lot of Johnny's performances, some of which were absolutely free. I remember one time of all places he played, Cinderella Mall in Denver, right there on Hampton and Colorado, I believe, right in the middle of the mall, right in the middle, with all the noise and all the people's sounds. And here's the Johnny Smith Quartet performing probably about 1984, 1985 maybe. And that was exciting.
I might even have to make Johnny sign this as well. One of his mid-60s recordings. And this is actually interesting because I bought this when I was probably 16 or something. And this was kind of my first introduction to really Johnny Smith. But the interesting thing is, of course, he's recorded for Verve. And on this album, he's playing with Hank Jones, George de Vivier, and Don Lemond. And look at Johnny with that butch haircut.
Johnny: Yeah. That's a terrible picture.
Alan: Well, Johnny, will you autograph that for me, please? I'll put my hand over the picture so you don't see it. And Johnny has some beautiful versions of Beatles tunes on here: Michelle, and Yesterday. And Hank Jones is still with us.
Johnny: Yeah, my favorite piano player.
Paid subscribers will find interview audio below.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Call & Response to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.