The experience was good for the youngster and led to him signing with Columbia Records and joining the Grand Ole Opry in 1952.
Molly O’Day, one of the big names in country music during the 1940s, invited the young Smith lad to join her company. A couple of years in the Navy near the end of the Second World War, interrupted his career temporarily, but on his return to civilian life, he picked up his guitar and turned to singing. First published in Country Music People, December 1975Ĭarl Smith, a tall, rough-hewn boy, and even today, after twenty-five years of notching up country hits, he prefers being on his own ranch near Franklin, Tennessee, just a few miles out of Nashville, to mixing with all the big names and being involved with the hub of country music in Nashville.īorn in Maynardsville, Tennessee on March 15, 1927, Carl began his career in music working as a disc-jockey on radio WROL in nearby Knoxville.
