Bryan Smith

His earliest credits are on the Washington rockabilly scene. He played acoustic bass on Tex Rubinowitz’s “Hot Rod Man” (Ripsaw, 1979) and doghouse bass on Billy Hancock’s “Miss Jessie Lee” and “I’m Satisfied” (Ripsaw, 1980), and he stayed with Hancock for the albums Rockabilly Fever (1981) and Hey! Little Rock and Roller (1983) on Big Beat. In the same years he worked with folk musicians: he played electric and acoustic bass on Cathy Fink’s Grandma Slid Down the Mountain (Rounder, 1984), bass on Pete Kennedy’s Rhythm Ranch (Rosewood, 1985) and on “Government on Horseback” from John McCutcheon and Si Kahn’s Signs of the Times (Rounder, 1986).

Tennessee 1949 was recorded at the Webco studio in Gaithersburg, Maryland, with Emerson on banjo and baritone vocals, Goble on guitar and lead vocals, Joe Meadows on fiddle, Mike Auldridge on dobro and Smith on bass, while the mandolin passed between Jeff Tuttle, Larry Stephenson and Jimmy Gaudreau. Emerson, Goble and Smith are all credited as producers. Smith played bass again on Emerson’s Banjo Man (Webco, 1996), and in 2010 he played doghouse bass on Marti Brom’s version of Rubinowitz’s “Feelin’ Right Tonight.”