CONNIE SMITH
She's been singing professionally since the early 1960s, when she was in her early 20s,
and Connie Smith still possesses one of the most powerful, agile and
recognizable voices in country music. Her exposure to audiences via recordings has been very much an on-and-off affair, but she has maintained a presence through her regular appearances on the Grand Ole Opry, of which she has been a member since 1971.
Born Constance June Meador on August 14, 1941, in Elkhart, Ind,
Connie was one of 14 children in a poor family that moved
often. She grew up in West Virginia and Ohio. She married young and was starting a family when, in 1963, she won a talent contest in Ohio that brought her to the attention of singer-songwriter Bill Anderson. Impressed by what he heard, Anderson persuaded her to come to Nashville, where RCA Records signed her the following year.
With Bob Ferguson acting as her producer, Smith cut several songs in the first RCA sessions, among them Anderson's tear-stained
"Once a Day". Released as Smith's first single,
the song entered the Billboard charts on Sept. 26, 1964, and went on to seize the No. 1 spot.
There it remained for eight consecutive weeks. It would be the only chart-topper of Smith's career, but she had a string of singles that came close, including such Top 5 and Top 10 fare as
"Then and Only Then", "If I Talk to
Him", "Nobody but a Fool (Would Love You)" ,"Ain't Had No
Lovin'","The Hurtin's All Over", "Cincinnati,
Ohio", "Just One Time", "If It Ain't Love (Let's Leave It Alone)" and
"Ain't Love a Good Thing".
Connie was a fixture on the country charts through the 1970s (she switched from RCA to Columbia in 1973). Starting in the late 1960s,
she also became invovled with gospel music and her contract with Columbia
allowed her to record one gospel album a year. A born-again Christian (her eldest son Darren is a missionary), she
has performed gospel music on the Opry and recorded an album of
Hank Williams' gospel songs.
During the 1980s, she concentrated primarily on raising her children. She returned to the charts (at No. 71) in 1985 on Epic Records with the single
"A Far Cry From You", written by the promising young songwriter Steve Earle.
In 1996, RCA released The Essential Connie Smith, a 20-cut CD that contains most of her biggest hits, plus the crowd-inciting
"How Great Thou Art".
Connie married country star Marty Stuart in 1997.
Connie Smith has sung her way into the hearts of music lovers all over
America and in more than 16 foreign countries. She has recorded
more than 40 albums and received numerous awards.
