Holland K. Smith
interview
As told to Don O.
1/24/04
Here's an Interview with Holland K. Smith which was featured as a cover
feature in Southwest Blues Magazine
Holland K. Smith likes to tell it like it is. Sit and talk with
him for just a few minutes, and you'll know just exactly where he
stands on any issue you want to discuss, and maybe some you don't want
to discuss. He never pulls his punches and if he knows the
definition of politically correct, he chooses to ignore it. His
music is the same way. It's raw, it's gritty, it's in your face,
it's sometimes funny, and it is always heartfelt. His original
songs are as good as any in the business and his playing and singing
are among the best in Texas. And that's saying something.
How he has escaped the clutches of the bigger blues record labels, when
lesser talents are ballyhooed as the next coming of Muddy, is yet
another mystery in an always mysterious business. Fortunately,
real talent always has staying power and that means Holland K. Smith
will be around for a long time to come. What follows is Holland's
story in his own words.
I was born in Fort Worth and grew up in Arlington. When I was a
little kid, church was fun. My church didn't believe in using
instruments so everything we did was acapella. This was when I
was just 5 or 6 years old. There was a really talented teacher
with a music degree, who worked with us kids, and we learned a lot
about singing. It was like professional vocal training.
They taught us the scales and stuff and by the time I was 10 years old
I was up in front of the congregation leading the songs. I was in
front of people a lot. My biggest problem was getting over the
butterflies and trying to hold that big heavy hymnal through a whole
song without my hand cramping up and dropping it! I was directing
the choir with one hand and trying to hold that big old book open with
the other.
I started listening to blues on a little AM radio around 1968 or
1969. I was 9 or 10 years old when I was listening to KNOK, KFJZ,
and KLIF. Especially late night when they weren't as strict about
playlists and the DJs would really throw some cool stuff out
there. I thought, til I was in my teens, that the bands were
actually down there at the radio station playing. That's how
naive I was. At the same time I was listening to popular music, I
was listening to B.B. King and Freddie King on the radio late at night.
That was about the only way I could get it being in Arlington, Texas
and locked in after 9 o'clock at night.
I had a buddy who played guitar and his mother ended up getting me a
guitar when I was about 9 years old. I started out doing blues
stuff because it was the easiest stuff. Ironically, I've since
learned it is some of the hardest stuff to play. I started
picking up some licks, right off the bat. Since then, I've always
had a guitar around the house. I started getting serious about it
in my early 20's. I did the rock thing for awhile, but I never
really fit in with that. One of the last rock bands I was in, I
still hadn't done any vocals to speak of. We had a big rift with
the lead singer and he left. It frustrated me because when the
voice left, it ruined the band. I figured since I had been
singing in church I should give it a try. That's where I started
singing and playing, which opened up a whole new can of worms compared
to what I had been doing up to then. It's different trying to do
two things at once instead of one. I messed around some more rock
bands and ended up getting frustrated after the last one I was
in. The guy with all the equipment decided he wanted to walk away
with it.
I formed my first blues band in about 1990. After a couple of
years that developed into the Terraplane Blues Band. We were
playing the little clubs like The Pennsylvania Pub and The New
Bluebird. We'd been going out to The Bluebird before that and
always wanted to get in there. Before I formed that band I had
been following Robert Ealey around and he had been peaking my interest
in "The Stuff". The guys who were hanging around with him were
turning me onto some people to watch. At the same time I had
discovered the KNON blues shows and I was keeping my ear to the
radio. That was back when there were late night blues shows that
ran all night during the week. I would sit up until I fell asleep
with my cassette recorder taping those KNON blues shows, then I'd wake
up to see what I missed. I still have a bunch of those tapes and I pull
them out and listen to them periodically. Now I can identify who
is who. I would pop those tapes in my car and listen to them all
week on the way to work and driving around town.
Then, from hanging around with Robert Ealey, I found out about Hash
Brown over in Dallas. He was playing in a little bar called
Schooners. I started going over there. The first few times
I went he didn't know who I was, so I sat and patiently waited and
watched all the other players. I never had the frustration that a
lot of players have today. It didn't bother me that he didn't get
me up. I was content to sit and watch, especially Hash. I
could really learn stuff watching him. It wasn't all about
getting up and showing off. In fact, I was a bit nervous because
a lot of the blues stuff Hash was playing was new to me. He was
always real cool to me. The first time I got up I did a couple of
T-Birds' tunes or something and he would always come over and encourage
me. I knew I sucked. But he encouraged me anyway and I
thought that was real cool. I've seen him do it to a lot of other
guys, since.
I ended up hanging out at Schooners a lot. Probably way more than
I should. Around that time is when the wife got pissed off and
that probably was partially the cause of us splitting up. I ended
up picking up a Monday night gig at Schooners. Around that same
time I saw the ad Richard Chalk had for Topcat Records auditioning for
new talent. I sent in our demo tape and sure enough we had a
tune, "Long Tall Texan", picked for their Hot Rhythm and Cool Blues
compilation CD.
A few years later I got a call from Doug Swancy from The
Prowlers. They had been on Bullseye Blues and there had been some
problems with their vocalist just before a two week tour up through the
Midwest and they needed a vocalist. That was really my first
taste of getting out on the road and doing an organized tour. I'd done
some stuff before with the rock bands, but it was really half-assed in
comparison. They didn't keep me as the front guy, but it was a
good experience.
I came back and kept on going with my thing and was wanting to move up
a bit. About that time the Prowlers imploded and I picked up Doug
Swancy and John Garza from that band and did my first CD, Jungle Jane,
with them on Topcat. We were together for about three years.
In 1995 we had a chance to go over to Asia for some gigs. That
was kind of a fluke deal. I got a call from a chick up in Canada that
was involved with some promotion in Thailand. It was just crazy.
I told her we would do it and next thing you know we got a check for 3
plane tickets. About 2 hours before the plane left, the bass
player called and said he couldn't make it. Swancy said he lost
count of the number of times I said "I can't believe he did
this!" All 22 hours on the plane. We found a bass player in
Bangkok, if you can believe it, and we hit the ground running. He
could barely speak English but he knew who B.B. King and Stevie Ray
were and he liked the music. We had a short rehearsal and it
worked out just fine. The promoters raised their eyebrows a bit, but we
pulled it off. We did 10 dates over three weeks and had a big
crazy time.
One night in Burma we had been up late hitting the pub and were walking
back to the hotel. It was about 3 or 4 in the morning. We were in
the middle of nowhere, no one on the street. We stuck out like
sore thumbs. We were giants compared to all those little
people. On one street corner was this figure sitting in a
robe. It was like something out of Lord of the Rings. He
had a pointed hood and long gnarly-ass cane and was squatting on the
curb. Whatever it was, it was just sitting there chanting this
strange little chant. I don't know if it was a man, woman, or
what, but it raised the hair on the back of my neck and we just kept on
walking. We did the Stooges thing, "Let's get outta here!"
I was also approached by a lady-boy in Bangkok. I was completely
tricked. Right up til "she" spoke with a big bass voice.
Then another "Woo, woo, woo" and away.
Eventually I picked up Kevin Schemerhorn and Eric Matthews and we
recorded Walking Heart Attack on Topcat. It was a few years
before I got around to doing my third one. I had some personal
problems myself and also lost a fiance in a tragic accident. I
eventually ended up forming my current band with Jim Milan, Danny Ross,
and Philip Law and I think Enough is Enough is the best CD I have done
yet. I dont think I can stress enough what a great bunch of guys
I have in this band. These guys are real pros and I'm damn lucky to
have them on board. We are on our way to Europe in February,
leaving the 4th back on the 17th. This is the first time I
have taken a 4 piece band over there but I know with these guys it will
go great. Things are looking good. I'm also working with a
new promoter who is trying to work up some festival dates for us.
Hopefully this summer will be full of fests.
We played the Blues on the Bay fest last August and it was real
cool. I met the guys from the Hollywood Fats Band, they're now
called the Hollywood Flames. Anson and Sam and the Boys were
there, Gary Primich and Juke Logan, we got to meet Tony Dow, Wally from
Leave it to Beaver and Michael Valani, the guy who does the Ditech
commercials. He's real cool. We still talk. He had
our CD out on his yacht in the bay blasting and people were asking who
it was. That's cool. Now all I need is a swimming pool and
a mansion in Beverly Hills, now that I've met all the stars!
Danny Ross and I payed for this new CD and we're only about half paid
off so I won't even consider a new CD till that gets done. I
always have my eye on new stuff, though. Right now I'm basically
just starting to make notes for the next one. I'll start a folder
pretty soon of things that I might do, then I'll cull down an idea for
my next CD. It will probably be another year before we get serious
about the next one. I just need to make the money back from this
one! We have a couple of labels interested and hopefully that can
develop into a deal. Pacific Blues is distributing Enough is
Enough and they've ordered over 100 units already. They are
getting good hits on their website and they seem to be impressed with
us, so I'm hoping maybe they will foot the bill for the next CD.
We're getting some good airplay over in Europe and hopefully we'll sell
a lot of CDs over there.
Anson Funderburgh helped produce my first two CDs and he was a lot of
help. I wanted to get him in on the third one, but our schedules
just never meshed so I decided to just get it done. Danny Ross
and Jim Milan were great and weren't afraid to tell me when I was
flat. That's what I wanted. Anson always had great
suggestions and actually taught me a lot about producing. He is
also a lot of fun, really funny, and just a lot of fun to hang out
with. Bob Sullivan engineered the second CD and he's a walking
encyclopedia, complete with Elvis Presley stories. He ran the
soundboard for the Louisiana Hayride for awhile and Elvis used to
borrow his Volkswagen, which was the first one in Louisiana.
I played with Hash in The Browntones the other night and I hope he
let's me do more of those. They are always a lot of fun.
Elliott Sowell, Jeremy Fuller, and Chris Zalez are the the type of
folks who are going to carry the torch. I just had Wanda King sit
in on a show and we are toying with the idea of doing some stuff
together. She has so much talent and loads of enthusiasm.
Andrea Dawson is another one who has it together. There's a lot
of kids who come to the jams but most of them fall by the wayside and
those few who stick with it are the ones who will carry the
torch. There's not as many young folks showing up at the jams
anymore. It sort of scares me. At the same time I'm seeing
more opportunities come to myself and my band as an artist doing
regular gigs. I think what has been going on the last four or
five years is there have been so many bands form out of the jam scene
it's just watered everything down. They think they can go to the
jam for a year then turn pro and make a living doing this. They
start booking themselves for nothing and there go the jobs. Now I
think we are starting to see a turnaround because the bar owners are
realizing you get what you pay for and the cheap bands don't draw
consistently. The proof is in the pudding. It's all about
selling drinks.
I was hoping maybe this last year, being the year of the blues, would
have gotten the media on the ball. It doesn't seem to have done
it. I think all it did was convince a bunch of rock guys that
they wanted to do blues records. That's the last thing we
needed. I think there has been a real wave of crap coming out
this last year. That just sort of reinforces what the general
public thinks and helps kept the good stuff underground and in a small
niche. Gary Primich told me one time the cream rises to the top.
I hope we are finally rising.