Oct 28 – Don Smith
Don Smith was born in Burlington, NC in 1950 and has spent all of his 66+ years in the South … 64 of them in the Tar Heel State. Don started performing publicly in early 2001 with the trio of Emerson, Smith & Phelps right here at Sacred Grounds. In late 2004, he also began playing solo at coffee houses across the Triangle and has appeared at a number of venues in Raleigh, Durham, Apex and Clayton. He draws his material from old public domain tunes, from traditional American artists such as The Carter Family and Woody Guthrie, and from more recent folk singer-songwriters such as Tom Paxton and Norman Blake. An evening with Don is a sort of trip through America’s rich folk/traditional music history. He sings of train wrecks and ships lost at sea … of hobos, outlaws and orphans … of lost love … of what it is to see the coal mine shut down or the entire year’s crop lost to drought. But before you grab the “crying towel”, you should know that he also sings of what it’s like to suddenly realize that you’ve become your own grandfather … or that tonight’s main course for dinner has just appeared in your headlights … or that your name is William Morgan, but your wife spends money as if it was J P Morgan instead! Some of his songs will make you laugh; others might make you cry. But nearly all of them have a story to tell, and Don has a story to tell about most of them as well. By the time you leave his show, you’ll have been not only entertained, but also educated and enlightened about some parts of American history that you might not have known when you arrived.
Sacred Grounds Coffeehouse 