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Canaan Smith’s rapid ascent as a country musician is partly grounded in tragedy.
“He was a really great example for me,” said Smith, 29, whose 16-year-old brother died in a traffic accident when Canaan was 11. “He taught me how to love other people. I feel his presence every day. More than any other event, it’s what shaped me.”
Smith, whose first video (“We Got Us”) has been viewed 1 million times on the Internet, performs Saturday during the Calaveras County Fair & Jumping Frog Jubilee at the Calaveras County Fairgrounds in Angels Camp.
Canaan Smith
When: 8 p.m. Saturday
Where: Calaveras County Fairgrounds, Angels Camp
Admission: $5-$7; 5 and younger free
Information: (209) 736-2561He’s filling in for Love & Theft, a Nashville duo that registered a top-10 country hit with “Runaway,” a 2009 song co-written by Smith.
Smith will spend the summer opening for Sugarland. He’s already performed at Nashville’s Grand Ole Opry and had his songs recorded by Jason Aldean, Billy Ray Cyrus and Amy Grant.
A major epiphany occurred March 16 in Atlanta.
“The whole crowd was singing along (with ‘We Got Us’),” Smith said, while taking a break from a Nashville song-writing session. “It was a chance to see it through their eyes. It was pretty amazing.”Smith is something of an anomaly in the Music City system. He’s writing or co-writing all of the songs for his debut album. Usually, newer country singers and their producers must pick from material being churned out daily by Music Row’s pros.
“I don’t know,” said Smith, who wrote “We Got Us” with Stephen Barker Liles and Tommy Lee James. “It’s not entirely common. I try not to think about it in any certain light. Then I tend to over-think things.
“I listen to outside songs, too. It helps us respect how high the bar is set. Nashville has the best songwriters in the world. You wanna make sure your songs live up to that level.”
Such aspiration drives his first album’s production. It should get a boost from 2011’s “We Got Us.”
“That’s been great,” Smith said. “It’s paved the way for radio reaction. It’s so exciting.”
Born in Dillsboro, Ind., Smith moved to Williamsburg, Va., with his family when he was 3. His parents - Larry, who worked in real estate, and Cheryl, a full-time mom - “bought us a room full of instruments” for Christmas when he was 8. Smith got a microphone and small amplifier.
With the Beatles and George Strait making big impressions - father and son also would “head-bang” to Rage Against the Machine - he toted his mini-sound system to school talent shows, sang in the garage and started writing songs.
“I caught the bug,” said Smith, who wanted to be a cowboy and also was into skateboarding, baseball and riding horses. “I couldn’t stop. I just fell in love. That’s my lifeline.”
He and two friends started a rock band (Anchor) in sixth grade. They stayed together through Lafayette High School. That apprenticeship - they wrote their own songs - has paid off.
“I was always just making it on my own,” Smith said. “We just needed money. We didn’t know how to get it. So we started pre-selling albums.”
He kept on learning. After a year at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Va., Smith earned a recording/engineering degree from Full Sail University (Winter Park, Fla.). After enrolling at Belmont University, he started singing at Nashville’s On the Rocks club.
Smith doesn’t quite fit Nashville’s macho-man template, though he did act out on CBS’s “The Amazing Race” in 2009. He and then-girlfriend Mika Combs were eliminated in round six.
“I’m just trying to be myself,” Smith said. “I’m not trying to be anything else. I haven’t looked at the market to see what’s missing and fill in the blank.”
He teasingly wants to “take over the world. I want to just reach people and connect with as many as I can through music. It’s about much more than music. To me, it’s about connecting.”
He hasn’t written specific tributes to Nathaniel, but his brother’s memory informs Smith’s creativity:
“He was on a (church) mission trip to Mexico. When he came back he was a changed man. He left his favorite pair of shoes with a boy in Mexico. The album is definitely for him. It’s more about overall themes and tones inspired by him. Like, ‘No matter what, everything’s gonna be alright.’ “
Like his facebook page, and enter here! https://www.facebook.com/CanaanSmithMusic/app_256872381018652
It’s one thing to see a picture of a legend standing in that famous circle, but it’s something much greater to know how it feels. What a night!
Thanks to all who came out! Hopefully we’ll get to do it again soon!
Lala’s Video Blog: Prom Crashers.
What happened when Lauren missed her own prom for a Sugarland tour date in Louisville? She crashed a local prom with fellow tour opener Canaan Smith. Watch and learn!
Canaan Smith in the studio of 99.5 WYCD performing “We Got Us”! More photos: http://bit.ly/IlGx2h
This Cigarette - Canaan Smith
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Canaan Smith was invited to be a Friends and Family Member of the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville, Tennessee on April 12th, 2012!
