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Born Feb. 12, 1922 in Kansas City,
MO, Smokey Smith landed his first radio job
as a singer and guitar picker for Ted West and his
Range Riders in 1938 at
WREN in Lawrence, KS. He went on to California in
1940 where he had live and deejay shows on KYOR in
San Diego.
Smokey and his band, The Gold Coast
Boys, cut transcribed shows in San Diego for XERB in
Rosa Rita Beach, Mexico and other Mexican stations
including XEG in Monterrey. He recorded for a time
for Crystal Records. In 1949, he went to work at
KRNT in Des Moines, IA where he continued doing live
and deejay shows plus making personal appearances
with his band all over Iowa and throughout the
Midwest.
Smokey began booking country and
Grand Ole Opry shows at the KRNT Theater in Des
Moines. Seating 4,172, the once-a-month bookings ran
from September through May. (The theater wasn't air
conditioned, so it was impossible to do shows in the
summertime.) Smokey then branched out by booking
additional dates in civic auditoriums in such cities
as Rochester, Minneapolis and Duluth, MN, Madison,
WI, Cedar Rapids, Waterloo, Davenport, Sioux City
and Burlington, IA, Fort Wayne, IN and Denver, CO.
Smokey booked Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings and
Charley Pride on some of their first concert dates.
For more than a year, he booked the country shows at
the Erie Crown Theater in the McCormick Place in
Chicago for WJJD. He had Buck Owens booked in there
when the McCormick Place burned to the ground two
weeks prior to the date. Smokey was able to switch
venues to the Civic Opera House where it sold
out.
Smokey had the first commercial
live country TV show in Iowa on KRNT-TV in 1953. He
also worked as a country deejay at KWDM in Des
Moines, KNIA in Knoxville, IA and KWKY, Des Moines.
He served as a board member for the Country Music
Disc Jockey Association, which later became the
Country Music Association.
Smokey was nominated for the
Country Music DJ Hall of Fame in 1981, but was
beaten out by Charlie Walker. Nominated again in
1982, he and Bill Mack tied for the honor and both
were inducted.
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