Bobby Smith. Common name. Rare talent.
Those who know the local version of Bobby Smith see him as an effervescent entertainer and will likely find it unbelievable he once didn’t bubble over with enthusiasm about being in the limelight.
“I was so shy to play in front of people,” Smith, 62, said in retrospect.
But that was a long time ago and Smith’s many years of playing the guitar, banjo and the ukulele have served him well, while providing crowds with foot-stomping, body-moving music.
“I’m not a great singer or guitar player,” Smith analyzes. “I think I can reach the crowd by the way I do the songs, by the way I perform.”
He’s been a frequent entertainer in recent years at Chemainus Legion 191 functions, both in the lounge and hall, and at various other establishments around town and the region. After living in Chemainus for three and a half years, he’s currently residing in Ladysmith and having a new house built there for occupancy by July.
Smith was born in Glasgow, Scotland, but left there with the family for Hamilton, Ont. when he was 14.
He became an apprentice painter at 16 working for a fellow named Frank Murtagh.
“I came all the way from Scotland to learn to paint from a Scotsman,” Smith chuckled.
He continues as a painter to this day and is a completely self-taught musician. Growing up in a large family with seven brothers and two sisters, he started playing the ukulele and then the banjo when he began earning enough of his own money to buy one.
Smith eventually bought his younger brother Brian his first guitar, a Yamaha FG 75 for $75.
“We’d sit and play together,” recalled Smith. “We grew up strumming. We just played for our own enjoyment. That was it.”
They didn’t know any Scottish songs when they left Scotland, but obviously picked up a few along the way.
“We grew up listening to Johnny Cash,” Smith noted. “We knew Johnny Cash songs, Hank Snow.”
They finally made a foray into playing at local Legions and did other gigs for fun when Smith particularly emerged from his shell during a New Year’s Eve bash in Burlington, Ont.
“I could feel us losing the crowd,” he observed. “I went out and I started strumming and playing a song. I had the inherent sense in me I was going to be an entertainer.”
Smith came to B.C. in 1977 and remained in the Vancouver area until 2003 before coming to the Island where he spent eight years at Yellow Point and then three years in Langford for his wife’s work, leading up to his time in Chemainus and Ladysmith.
Smith and his brother Brian played for many years at Legions and a variety of locations around the Lower Mainland such as the Georgia Hotel and Murphy’s Pub.
Things changed drastically when Brian moved back to Scotland and Smith ventured on his own with guitar in hand. He was offered $25 a night plus free food and drink to play at a great spot called the Horse and Carriage.
When the owner finally brought in more than $1,000 a night during his performances, Smith said “it gave me the confidence to play on my own. It was always my brother Brian beside me.”
He started on a 12-string guitar “so I could make more noise behind my singing,” he quipped. “That’s how I graduated to where I am now.”
Smith’s playing was confined mainly to the banjo before that.
He once tried to follow Long John Baldry’s playing at his birthday party. That’s what you’d call giving the audience clashing sounds.
As if that wasn’t crazy enough, “I think the most nerve-wracking thing I ever did was playing in front of 800 people in Omak, Washington,” Smith added.
He played the banjo and then picked up the guitar for a couple of songs at a banjo jamboree benefit when the headliners didn’t show up.
To his surprise, a woman grabbed his arm as he was headed off the stage.
“She said, ‘you’ve got to go back, you got a standing ovation,’” Smith recounted. “I was more relaxed, they liked me. It was the most rewarding, it was also the most nerve-wracking. People try to be too perfect when you’re up there.”
Through all those experiences, Smith just learned to have fun himself and the audiences, no matter how big or small, followed suit.
“The average person, if they like what they hear, they’re happy,” he conceded.
“I like to think I can bring some emotion to a crowd. It can be happiness or sadness.”
The Saltair Pub will be swinging to Smith’s sounds on St. Patrick’s Day. It’s a time when Scottish eyes are sure to be smiling in honour of the Irish.
“You have to keep it interesting,” Smith foreshadowed.
