Adam Steffey
"A Good Way To Get The Blues" (Russell Johnson)
Valerie Smith and Becky Buller
By Chris Stuart
If you were in the audience for Valerie Smith & Liberty Pike’s showcase at October 2008’s World Of Bluegrass conference in Nashville, you might have noticed Valerie performing with even more energy than usual in her always high-powered stage show. Valerie and the band were up for the set and it sparked a standing ovation from an audience that often dares performers to entertain them. But, what gave Valerie a little extra hop in her step that night was something that happened earlier at the conference. She had walked into a vocal health screening clinic run by Dr. Thomas Cleveland of the Vanderbilt Voice Center and had a picture taken of her throat. What the doctor told her made her nightmares of the past several years finally disappear.
Fade back to February 2007 in Tacoma, Wash., at the Wintergrass festival: Valerie and the band put on another great show, a gospel set that was rated by some as the best they had seen at the festival in any year. But Valerie’s mood off-stage was more somber. She was due to go in for a second surgery to remove a growth in her throat. It was not cancerous—and she was thankful for that—but, it was possible that afterward she would never sing again. Valerie was used to hurdles, but this was a ten-foot-high stone wall.
For many years, Valerie struggled with pain in her throat. A misdiagnosis of asthma obscured the real problem. “For years, I was embarrassed to do an interview, because I felt like I sounded horrible just talking,” Valerie says. “People described my voice as having that ‘husky’ sound. That’s really not what I wanted to bring across. Even doing radio liners was a terrifying thing for me because I didn’t like the way my voice sounded. It sounded strained and damaged. Sometimes my voice would get so tired that it was hard to talk on stage.”
On a European tour in 2005, Valerie reached the point where she could barely sing. She recalls, “I got extremely sick in Germany. And Becky [Buller] had to rise to the occasion and front the band. I had to fake it and just sing a couple of songs a set.” Upon returning, she finally got a correct diagnosis from Dr. Cleveland at Vanderbilt of cysts as her throat problem and, in May 2006, she went in for surgery. The doctors found, however, a growth at the base of her vocal cords that would require a second surgery scheduled for late February 2007. Complications also arose from treating inflammations and infections with a mixture of steroids. It seemed at the time that she would never escape the endless cycle of problems.
After Wintergrass, the second surgery was successful, but, again, not without complications. She lost muscle memory in her esophagus and would have to learn to sing again with essentially a completely new throat. Faced with a lot of hard work and uncertainty in front of her, she did what few people would have done. She started a new recording project—a duet album with Liberty Pike fiddler and songwriter Becky Buller, “Here’s A Little Song,” released in September 2008. “Between Dr. Cleveland, Garth Whitcomb (a voice specialist), and lots of hard work and sticking-to-it, I finally got my muscle memory back and the throat loosened up. So, the duet album was my way of getting back on my feet. I had to do that album to continue to get better. It was like learning to play a new instrument. That tumor was no longer there, but I had sung around it for so long that it was a new voice.”
A decision to proceed with a big recording project after a possibly career-ending surgery tells you a lot about Valerie. But, looking back at her career, it’s not surprising. Faced with an obstacle, Valerie doesn’t wait for someone to take care of things for her. She gets to work.
The town of Holt in northwestern Missouri has two claims to fame. It holds the world’s record for the fastest accumulation of rainfall, which happened on June 22, 1947, when the town received 12 inches of rain in 42 minutes. Holt is also the hometown of Valerie Smith. When Valerie (Stevens, then) was growing up, the population was only around 300, but she heard all kinds of country music, including some from her parents. Her father played resonator guitar and her mother played bass and sang.
Missouri is the center of the nation in more ways than one. It’s where a wide range of American music comes together, including jazz, blues, western swing, old-time, and country. She learned to play fiddle at an early age, but it was her singing that led to a B.A. in Vocal Music Education at the University of Missouri Conservatory of Music in Kansas City. She returned to Holt with her husband Kraig Smith and taught music in elementary schools for two years before Kraig’s career took the couple to Tennessee in 1992.
Valerie began exploring the music scene in Nashville and outlying areas. At a gig in Bell Buckle, Tenn., they met J. Gregory Heineke, owner of the Bell Buckle Café. It eventually led to the formation of Bell Buckle Records and a long-time business association.
Smith felt drawn to the bluegrass scene, but she brought to it her own sense of entertainment. Recalls Valerie, “I got involved in bluegrass because I liked the people. It’s a very educated audience who really do value the songs. I knew I wasn’t a typical bluegrass artist, but I liked the scene. The audience paid attention to the songs.” At her first World Of Bluegrass showcase, she didn’t play an instrument on stage and quickly found out that some bluegrass promoters considered that unacceptable. “I could play guitar and mandolin, but I had Andy Leftwich in my band, so I felt like I had musicians who could play better than me. So, on my first showcase, I didn’t carry an instrument, and I performed like you would on a country music show, and I think people either thought it was great or didn’t like it because I didn’t have an instrument in my hand.”
Valerie has also paid attention to other successful female bluegrass artists and reached out to them for advice. “Claire Lynch, Lynn Morris, Laurie Lewis, Rhonda Vincent, that’s kind of my era and they were so nice to me and so giving and encouraged me so much,” she remembers. “I began playing instruments on stage, and I realized that I didn’t have to be the best at it. I could just enjoy playing an instrument. I think that’s the true spirit of music, to reach out to others and encourage them.”
For most artists, there seems to be two ways of approaching the music business. The first is to expect a record label to pick you up and do everything for you. The second is to become a do-it-yourself artist and take care of the business and artistic duties on your own. Valerie is in the second category. She prefers the DIY approach, but she knows that if you’re going to do it right, you need the help of good people. And she has the intuition that those people will serve you best if you serve them first. Valerie says, “You have to build it yourself. Instead of waiting for someone to say, ‘I’m here to help you.’ Some people think that there’s a gold pot at the end of the rainbow, but the gold is in your hand as you’re walking across the rainbow. The gold is making the music, playing the music, and the people that you meet along the way. It’s the journey. I take a lot of pride in helping to start Bell Buckle Records.”
There’s more than the record label, though. No other bluegrass artist is as involved in such a wide a range of activities as Valerie Smith. With a talented band, her husband Kraig Smith, business associate J. Gregory Heineke, as well as publicist Shari Lacy of GoodStuff PR Company and an office of support staff, she has put together an organization that handles management, booking, a record label, the Bell Buckle Music Cruise (now in its sixth year and sold out this past January), and a full-day music show called “Dare To Be Different,” the proceeds of which go to the IBMA’s Bluegrass In Schools program. Also, for the past few years, Valerie and the band have hosted a festival in Waldo, Fla., called Don’t Get Above Your Grazin’.
It is an impressive organization—creative, pragmatic, and always looking for new ways of getting music to her fans. Valerie says, “I work with a lot of people booking in the Bell Buckle office. J. Gregory does a lot of representing, but I get on the phone, too. It’s not easy being rejected, but that’s part of it,” she explains. “I think as an artist, if you own your own business and you know what’s going on in your career, that’s a good thing. I’ve always felt a lot of pride in creating something as a business owner. We even do most of our photography. It’s not just seeing your own career grow, but seeing other people’s career grow, like Becky’s. All this is meant to be shared.”
Another reason for Valerie’s success is that her focus remains on the songs. She understands that good songs are the foundation of a long career, and she has now recorded six albums in ten years, beginning with “Patchwork Heart” in 1998, produced by Alan O’Bryant. Valerie takes her approach to songs seriously. “My albums reflect a lot about where I’m at. I don’t look at the world as when I recorded ‘Patchwork Heart.’ There’s no way you can be the same person as ten years ago.”
Valerie has chosen songs by some of the best songwriters today—Becky Buller, Mark Simos, Lisa Aschmann, Lynda Wittig, Holly Tashian, and Sara Majors, among others. “I try to find writers who reflect emotions. I’m not just making music, but I’m sharing something about the way I see the world. I put a lot of heart and soul in finding those songs.”
Perhaps no more difficult an album for her to complete was “No Summer Storm” in 2002, which followed the tragic death in an automobile accident of mandolinist Eddie Miller. Valerie says, “He was in my band for two years. It was so hard, the reality of things. He died on the way to play one of my shows. He was so enthusiastic about that album and had so much to do with the arrangements.”
Her next album, “That’s What Love Can Do,” wasn’t released until 2005, but it was a way for her to regain confidence and rediscover those beliefs in music that sometimes get lost when life obscures them. “My shows are all about being uplifting and energetic on stage. That album was my way of getting back on the horse and picking myself up. I wrote the title song when I saw a toddler at Epcot Center communicating with one of the characters in the [park’s] Italian section. It was so breathtaking. It made everyone feel good. Everyone stopped and watched this going on. It actually brought a tear to my eye and it was a reminder that there’s a lot of hope and love out there in this world. My husband, Kraig, and I finished that song and it became a healing process for me to say that bad things happen, but guess what? We can endure it.”
In the middle of her vocal cord troubles, Valerie completed a gospel project, “Wash Your Troubles Away.” She recalls, “That was right before I was to go in for the second surgery. During that entire recording, there was no guarantee that I was ever going to sing or talk again. In my mind, I knew that whatever words I sang on that album were what I was going to say. Life has been pretty good to me, and if this was the last thing that I got to record, then this is what I wanted people to know about me.”
With the completion of the recent duet album, “Here’s A Little Song,” Valerie feels rejuvenated. “I have felt better physically the last ten months than I’ve felt for the four or five years previously. This year has been a particularly happy time for me. It’s just like tasting one of the best pieces of chocolate and you want to take your time with it. That’s kind of how I’ve been this year, just really thankful.”
Still, when Valerie went into the vocal health screening clinic in October 2008, she went in hesitant about the possibility of what Dr. Cleveland might find. But, she says, “He told me it didn’t look like I ever had surgery on those vocal chords. I walked out of there feeling like a new person. I’m feeling so pumped up about the future. I didn’t realize what mental strain I had been under for so many years.” Right now, she’s making plans for the next album. “It probably won’t come out for another year. My voice is still stretching, and I’m getting a range that I haven’t had before, and I want time to play around with that and also take time to write songs.”
What is striking about Valerie’s attitude is not just that she has constantly overcome obstacles, or that she has faced them bravely, but that she understands the irony implicit in playing music for a living. It’s putting yourself in the spotlight and inviting the world into your life, but at a deeper level it’s a lesson in humility. She says, “You can’t always be the flavor of the year or belle of the ball. I had to learn to be comfortable with years that I’m having success and also, in those years, that maybe my career wasn’t as successful. I think once you’ve lost your voice and you don’t know whether you’re going to sing again or not, everything else looks pretty good compared to that. You have to ask yourself, ‘Do you love it enough even when you can’t flutter your peacock feathers?’”
Chris Stuart is a writer and musician living in San Diego, CA