Music

Songs of the South

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"My goal as a writer is to get people to think, to get people to ask themselves why they do the things that they do," he says. "As a person I want to represent the ideals that are at my core. I don't think I could be content wearing a fucking cowboy hat because somebody paid me money to do it."

Ideals? Redefining country music? Writing the song that "explains it"?

"You know," he says, "I was a high school teacher for four years before any of this opportunity was given to me, so I want to make sure that I continue educating people. I mean, I woke up a couple of weeks ago and it's like I realized I play in bars most of the time and the majority of the kids are drunk as hell. And I feel now more than ever this sense of responsibility. Like sure, I'm a performer. Sure, I'm a songwriter and musician. But I have a responsibility, and I want to make sure that whatever I produce is honest and constructive and not destructive."

There is, of course, the rather obvious question of whether or not Corey Smith's currently large and loyal fan base wants to be taught.

Before his show in New York, Smith nervously paces the cinderblock hallway behind the stage and tries not to order the vodka that would calm his nerves.

"I was a wreck before that show," he tells me when we talk again. It's nearly a month after his NYC debut, and Smith is in a van headed toward Columbia, South Carolina, for another in a long line of sold-out shows in the beautiful South.

"Oddly enough, I won't get nervous a bit tonight. In fact, I'll get the opposite of nervous. I'll get very energized and just pumped up. Last week we played to something like 8,500 people in Knoxville and our new drummer was just starting and I had every reason to be nervous, but I just don't get nervous in those kind of situations. Which is odd, because in New York, in front of 120 people, I was a wreck."

As such, B.B. King's was not a show that the singer-songwriter will rank among his best.

"As far as performance-wise," he says, "it certainly will not. It'll be down there in the lower rungs, but at the same time it will be one of the more memorable. Every Southern redneck that was on the island was there. And they were raising hell."

Well, not quite every resident Manhattan redneck, but the audience in question is well-versed in the hardy party indeed.

The scene looks like a misplaced college mixer for fifth-year seniors as former frat boys and sorority girls pack the front of the stage. They carry beers in one hand and — though smoking isn't allowed inside NYC bars — cigarettes in the other, performing what appears to be the offical dance of the recently graduated, relocated Southerner: arms in the air while shaking their full-figured cans like they just don't care.

But they do.

They are mesmerized as a former high-school history teacher strums an acoustic guitar while his doghouse bass player picks a beat. Metallica this ain't. But Corey Smith's crowd leans back and sings loudly along, with eyes closed and fists (or beers or cigarettes) pumping the air, their chests heaving with nostalgic, Southern hearts.

Particularly on the songs about drinking too much.

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