It's now confirmed that the once-legendary Tennessee native wrote many of early country music's biggest hits and timeless songs. , which were previously attributed to other performers and authors.
His name is Arthur K. Smith—"K" for short. His story is linked to some of the most important names in country music history, and thanks to Southern music historians Wayne Bledsoe and Bradley Reeves, his story is here to stay.
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The well-told story goes something like this: From the 1930s to the 1950s, Arthur K. Smith wandered the world of country music and radio, drinking, writing, and selling hundreds of songs on envelopes, napkins, and scraps of paper, often for the price of a bottle or his bar tab. Some of them became hits. Billboard , but K.'s name was nowhere to be found, since the song's ownership belongs to its author.
Wayne Bledsoe, a Knoxville music journalist and radio host for 40 years, and Reeves, founder of the Tennessee Archive of Moving Image and Sound (TAMIS), set out to meticulously document everything that happened along the way in the early 2000s. Years of documenting yielded a wealth of irrefutable evidence, which later formed the basis of official public records, several verified photographs and video clips, and, finally, the actual Q demos on acetate vinyl.
Bradley Reeves says disc finds have actually become commonplace.
«"Word started to get out that we were looking for material. The families of these dead country musicians started digging through the archives and asking, 'Oh, what is this?' And there it was, on this homemade demo disc, an acetate hidden in a piano bench, with 'Q' written on it. It kept repeating itself over and over again. He left this mark over the years.".
Eventually, Smith's family was found, along with boxes of handwritten sheet music, lyrics, and records on which countless songs had been purchased. Together, they confirmed Q's role in shaping early country music.
The result of all this musical archeology was album The Trouble With The Truth, A 49-track double CD containing all of Arthur K. Smith's known recordings, plus studio versions of songs performed by country stars, recorded as original compositions.
The collection included "Wedding Bells" (written by Claude Boone), a Top 5 hit for Hank Williams and also covered by Dean Martin, Jerry Lee Lewis, Charlie Rich, and George Jones; "If Teardrops Were Pennies" (written by Carl Butler), a Top 10 hit for Dolly Parton and also covered by Loretta Lynn and Kitty Wells; and "Rainbow at Midnight" (written by Lost John Miller), a Number 1 hit for Ernest Tubb and a Number 5 hit for the Carlisle Brothers.
Album released in 2016 The Trouble With the Truth earned Bledsoe and Reeves a Grammy nomination for Best Album Annotations for the 124-page booklet detailing Smith's early days in the country music world.
As the album spread, country music elders spoke of even bigger hits for Q, and a more complete picture of his discography emerged.
Band members and friends of all involved pointed to the song "I Can't Stop Loving You" (written by Don Gibson), which has been covered by over 700 artists, including Roy Orbison, Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, Van Morrison, Duke Ellington, and Conway Twitty. Ray Charles' version reached number one on three different Billboard charts and won a Grammy Award for Best R&B Song.
The two also shared a fondness for "Tennessee Waltz" (written by Pee Wee King and Redd Stewart), once the most successful song in American pop history (and the best-selling single in Japanese history!). Artists who have released it include Sam Cooke, Otis Redding, Leonard Cohen, Hank Williams Jr., Elvis Presley, and Tom Jones. Patti Page's version is the official state song of Tennessee and has been honored by the Library of Congress.
Although this eventually led to Q's induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, his story faded into obscurity, never receiving national attention. And he is not in either hall.
Bledsoe believes it may not be a coincidence that the US music capital prefers to keep its roots intact. "I think there are still people there who just don't want the whole Q thing to come out," he says. "Because there are a lot more legendary people associated with him who could buy songs from him.".
«"Fortunately, Smith is still credited with at least half the credit for the many songs and sheet music… in which he retained some interest," Reeves adds. "But the sheer number of tunes he composed is enormous, and we may never know their full scope.".
10 years after its release books "The Problems with Truth", As new truths continue to emerge, Q's story deserves a more in-depth retelling.
Ernest Tubb (right) and his band, the Troubadors, perform with Q on WNOX. Guitarist Billy Byrd is on the left. (Photo courtesy of the Tennessee Archive of Moving Image and Sound)
James Arthur Pritchett was born in 1909. In the industrial town of Griffin, Georgia, he grew up fatherless. Raised by his mother in the mountains of Harlan, Kentucky, the young Pritchett decided to combine his middle name and his stepfather's last name to create a new identity: Arthur Smith. During the Great Depression, Smith joined the masses of uneducated Southerners seeking work in the coal mines, and at the age of 21, he picked up a pickaxe and descended into the depths of Harlan by wagon.
Harsh working conditions underground and meager wages forced overworked workers to try to form a union, but owners fiercely resisted, and thus began the Harlan County War—nine years of intermittent miner strikes, punctuated by violence and gunfire from hired thugs and corrupt police officers. The conflicts during the Harlan County War occasionally became so intense that the Kentucky National Guard was called in to restore order.
During the endless dark days in the bitumen mines, singing became commonplace among the workers, inspired by the pioneering sound of WNOX Knoxville's AM radio station, which wafted from the brightly lit part of the mine. Founded in 1921 as WNAV, pioneering WNOX is considered by many to be the eighth most important radio station in the country and gave many residents of remote rural areas of the South their first exciting introduction to music on the airwaves.
Smith developed a passion for singing underground, and on the surface, influenced by other miners, he acquired a guitar and began experimenting with songwriting. Eventually, breathing the stifling air filled with black dust and dodging attacks after his shift became unbearable, so around 1935, Smith, with a crooked finger from an accident at a coal crusher, packed up his guitar, and set out for the 10,000 watts of sonic magic pouring over the Cumberland Mountains.
Arriving in Knoxville, Smith found the WNOX building surrounded by throngs of radio tourists, frantic crowds of people of all ages who gathered daily in hopes of catching the "Midday Carousel," a live broadcast that had become a cultural landmark for the city.
The program "Carousel," which featured music and comedy performed by its own band and actors, aired daily at noon, which, according to Bledsoe, was prime time in the small town. "Here and in other rural places back then, they showed programs at noon because lunch was the main meal of the day, not dinner. And people who farmed would take a break and all turn on the radio.".
After Arthur broke into the local music scene, he was offered a job as rhythm guitarist for the band Merry-Go-Round, but with one condition: a rebranding. The show's boisterous host, Lowell Blanchard, found the name Arthur Smith too bland for radio, so he added the letter Q and coined the nickname "Tennessee Cornhuskers" for Smith, then drew up a contract.
Q immediately discovered that "Carousel" was more than just clichés and jingles. The show's more unusual segments featured a one-armed banjo player, a handless dobro player who played with his feet, something called "Tony Musco and his Steinway piano shaped like a stomach," and Little Robert, a guitarist with incredibly small feet who was later implicated in a high-profile double murder in Knoxville.
Within a year, Arthur Q. Smith landed his own solo show, which, despite its failure, revealed his undeniable songwriting talent. Word of Q.'s virtuoso songwriting skills spread, and soon he was approached by well-known musicians with money, including Roy Acuff, Chet Atkins, The Carter Sisters, and Mother Maybelle, as well as Bill Monroe, known as the "Father of Bluegrass.".
«"Smith sold his music directly to artists in exchange for quick upfront payments and to avoid the legal formalities of publishing companies," says Reeves. "He chose the easy and fast route rather than waiting for royalties, which was necessary in the context of the growing problem of alcohol addiction.".
Each customer's purchase included lyrics, a full arrangement, and a one-time demo of the chords and melody by the composer. Over time, Q began providing regular customers with guitar demos recorded on an acetate tape recorder owned by Carl Butler, a former member of the popular Grand Ole Opry group (the use of which was provided in exchange for Q's songwriting services).
In 1937, despite the resounding success of "Carousel," WNOX refused to raise its staff, opting instead to fund a signal boost. While this was justified—Knoxville was located between two mountain ranges that hindered radio signal transmission—the budgetary change led to most of the beloved "Carousel" performers quickly leaving the station. Radio stars of that era were as respected as modern movie stars, so opportunities for income were plentiful.
Q and other defectors formed troupes and began touring Kentucky, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia, often visiting rural towns where wide-eyed residents would encounter faces whose voices they recognized from the radio. "Five or so people would pile into these big old cars, huge Cadillacs," Reeves says of his bands. "It was a lot of fun, a lot of drinking, and, believe it or not, they made a pretty good living back then.".
Eric Dawson, director of the Tennessee Moving Image and Sound Archive, says interest in music in the South was widespread, gigs were easy to book, and venues soon began popping up wherever there was flat land. "From the photos we saw, there were a lot of schools, churches, and county fairgrounds. They'd play in the courthouse, the hunting lodge, the gymnasium... or just spontaneously set up on the riverbank, maybe stopping in town for a picnic. Many places didn't even have electricity; they'd have to plug their amplifiers into a truck battery. It was all pretty primitive.".
While on the road, Q constantly wrote and sold songs for his tourmates to perform, keeping detailed records of the lyrics and the names of the buyers. Some musicians credited him when performing songs at concerts, while others claimed to have written the songs they purchased. As random musicians began joining and leaving the bands, a unique energy of rock touring emerged.
«"You have to understand, all these guys came from rough families. They weren't polished like later country music stars; they were real, honest people. They were party animals, they loved the wild life and having fun. They were always getting into fights, and they were always being challenged. And they all had fun until they got bored, you know?" says Reeves.
Bledsoe and Reeves' research shows that Smith had disappeared from view by 1937. Although radio and newspaper ads that year advertised a refurbished carousel, no mention was made of the "Tennessee Cornhusker.".
However, Knoxville city directories indicate that Q married in 1937 and lived unemployed with his new wife, Kathleen, in Happy Holler, a seedy neighborhood full of seedy taverns.
Golden Age. (Photo courtesy of the Tennessee Archives of Moving Image and Sound)
In the early 1940s, WNOX AM radio was a beacon of live country music. thanks to his Saturday night show "« Tennessee Barn Dance» , where the founders of Nashville's Grand Ole Opry performed. Just across the block, rival station WROL was thriving, and the streets of downtown Knoxville were filled with radio tourists and aspiring musicians. It's believed that Q roamed this scene, selling songs for next to nothing to feed his crippling alcohol addiction.
While selling and trading songs was common in the city, Q's business model, which often involved full ownership rather than just a percentage, was unusual—it allowed the buyer to register the copyright to the songs in their own name, granting them exclusive publishing and royalty rights. In 1942, the shortcomings of Smith's approach began to become apparent when Roy Acuff recorded the purchased song in Nashville, scoring the first of several secret national hits for Q among industry artists.
As his condition worsened, his former WNOX colleagues lent a helping hand, hiring him as a tour manager and writer of compilation albums sold on the road. However, according to Reeves, by that point Smith's addiction had become truly life-threatening. "He was just drinking constantly. Eventually, he became just an appendage. Although they allowed him to hang around. He had talent, so they respected him. But he was so exhausted that he didn't perform, he just sold these compilation albums.".
Smith also tried working as a tour promoter, driving through small towns a few days before a tour, using car-mounted loudspeakers to announce upcoming concerts and scout venues. More often than not, he spent his gas money on booze and ended up in a desperate situation. This became a common scenario: contact the tour promoters in a neighboring town, inform them your car has broken down. You get the money for repairs, spend it on booze, and then wait for the tour to catch up.
Meanwhile, in Knoxville, major label scouts, given free rein to sign artists whose songs were enjoying immense radio popularity, were making offers. The first was Chet Atkins, who immediately recorded his hit single "Guitar Boogie," written by Q, for RCA Victor and moved to Nashville. A buzz arose in the city, and half a dozen local songwriters began pitching their work to the scouts—and rumor has it that most of the tunes were originally purchased from Smith.
In 1946, on the recommendation of his star client Bill Carlisle, Q secured exclusive publishing and recording contracts with two Cincinnati, Ohio, labels, on the condition that he remain sober. Tasked with writing country music for poor whites and rousing R&B for the Black working class, Q began selling traditional country music informally, using his mother's name—even to the president of one label, so that his other artists could perform their songs.
One of the secret deals of that period, "Rainbow at Midnight," reached number one on the Billboard charts for the buyers, the Carlisle brothers, and number five for Ernest Tubb, before becoming a country music classic for a generation. Surprisingly, Q began selling "answer songs" to his own hits. Tubb found success again with the Q-penned "Answer to Rainbow at Midnight," and after selling Tubb the national hit "Missing in Action," he wrote and sold "Returned from Missing in Action" to Jim Inez.
Due to alcohol abuse, Arthur's Ohio contracts were terminated in 1947. Then came marriage to his second wife, Lillian (and eventually five children), after which he moved to Memphis and Shreveport, Louisiana, to write for radio hosts. Both jobs were lost for the usual reasons, but then came a coveted appointment as business manager for the immortal Hank Williams. However, shared alcoholism quickly destroyed Q and Hank's partnership, and after failing to show up for a concert, Williams' wife ended their partnership.
In 1949, Williams hit number two on the Billboard charts with "Wedding Bells," a song he wrote and sold to Cue Claude Boone of Knoxville for just $25. (Cover versions of "Wedding Bells" by Dean Martin and Charlie Rich appeared in the 1960s, adding another $40,000 to Boone's modest investment.) Smith wrote a follow-up song, "Memories of Wedding Bells," and sold the rights to Boone. Only in his old age did Boone occasionally admit that none of the songs were his.
A few months later, the utterly broke family returned to the dingy Happy Holler neighborhood, where Lillian Pritchett worked packing tomatoes to support the family. After the breakup of their marriage, Q set up a second home, essentially an office, in a lively local tavern called the Three Feathers. Located directly across from WNOX, the bar was packed daily with touring radio hosts, most of whom had heard of the man in the back booth with a pad and pencil.
Q sits propped up on a stool at the Three Feathers bar in North Knoxville, Tennessee. (Photo courtesy of the Tennessee Moving Image and Sound Archives)
«"Everyone knew he was there and what he could do. It was just amazing," Reeves says. "You could list 50, maybe 75 famous people from all over the South who bought individual songs there, or even more, driving by, and many of them were big Nashville fans.".
Over the next few years, Q's tunes were played on national radio stations, but prices remained low. Bledsoe recalls Chet Atkins telling him that when he asked Smith why his prices were so low, he replied, "You don't know how many times I've sold them!" Three Feathers owners Leonard and Helen Shersky were also customers, trading rivers of beer with Smith for his work, and then selling it themselves to visiting musicians.
Hank Williams resumed his collaboration with Q before his death in 1953. Q's eldest son, James Pritchett, testifies to his father's presence during Hank's mysterious final 24 hours.
«"The night before he died, Hank was at the Andrew Johnson Hotel in Knoxville, supposedly with my father, and they were continuing their addictions. And the next morning… I remember my mother saying, 'Arthur, they just said Hank died.' And he said, 'Well, screw him, just when he was promising to record another one of my songs.'".
In 1952, the Sherskys closed the Three Feathers club, and Q was left to wander Knoxville, selling his records to schoolteachers, promoters, and even janitors. There are stories of prominent Nashville figures dragging him off the streets, keeping him drunk in hotels for days, and then leaving Knoxville with a pile of new songs. Things began to decline, and after two years of daily drinking, Smith's health seriously deteriorated, as did his morale—the radio was constantly playing songs for which he had never received recognition.
During his rare visits home, the drunken Smith began beating his wife, driving away any children who dared interfere. One day, Lillian fought back with an iron frying pan and beat Q unconscious, sending him to the hospital. After being discharged from the hospital, Q kicked his family out of the house and attempted suicide by putting his head in the oven. It didn't work. Later that year, in a final attempt, he wrote a book titled «"Writing songs for fun and profit"» , copies of which are still sought after as the Holy Grail.
By the late 1950s, Knoxville's country music scene was in decline. The influence of television had decimated radio listenership, prompting WNOX to abandon its signature programming in favor of Top 40-style programming. All the serious songwriters from the region had migrated to Nashville, then known as the "Music Capital of the United States." Rock 'n' roll was pushing old-school country out of the charts, while new, polished country styles like that of Smith's friend Chet Atkins were gaining immense popularity.
Estranged from his family and gravely ill, Arthur underwent partial stomach surgery and began working as a wallpaper hanger before suffering a heart attack in 1961. Diagnosed with cancer in 1962, Arthur C. Smith was found dead in a flophouse on Vine Street in Knoxville on March 21, 1963. No official cause of death was given; he was 53 years old, and he had ten cents in his right pants pocket.
At Q's wake, a fight broke out between two men to whom he had sold the same song a week before his death. One waved the sheet music as proof of purchase, the other held up the lyrics; both pages were headed "It's All Over.".
He died at age 53. (Photo courtesy of the Tennessee Archives of Moving Image and Sound)
It would seem that this is where the story should have ended, and very sadly at that. , but in 1983, when Ricky Skaggs hit number one with "I Wouldn't Change You If I Could," Q's daughter had a hunch it might be one of her fathers' songs. Some research revealed that this was indeed the case, and that he retained half the rights, bringing the family more money in one go than Q earned in his entire career. With the money, Lillian bought their paralyzed son, Glenn, his own house.
A wonderful coincidence, though present The Pritchett family miracle happened 36 years earlier, when the abandoned Q family was starving and on the brink of ruin. His eldest son, James, tells it best: «In 1957, we lived in Western Heights, Knoxville. And my mother never had a car, she just walked an hour every day to work at Forest Avenue Market. She packed tomatoes for the Three Musketeers. I remember they had a big sign there: «A Little Less Talk, A Lot More Packing.» Anyway, November came, tomato season was over, we had no money for food. One night, she couldn’t wait any longer; she needed a job.«.
«"She walks to Western Avenue. [one hour and forty-five minutes] to a large tobacco warehouse . There are no openings there. She's trying to get a job at a small restaurant across the street called the Dinner Bell. She couldn't find a job. She's trying to get a job at another tobacco warehouse on 6th Avenue. [one hour and thirty minutes]. The guy says no, but there might be openings at the tobacco warehouse on Cherry Street. It's raining outside at the moment."»
«Now she has to walk back to Vermont Avenue. [hour], then go down to Cherry Street [one hour and thirty minutes] . It's all very remote, with hills. There was no interstate back then, but now you'd have to take three exits. There were no jobs on Cherry Street. The last tobacco warehouse was on 6th Avenue and Glenwood, so she has to go there. [forty-five minutes] . Nothing".
Of course, at this point, my mom was in complete despair. She wanted to take the bus because it was an hour's walk home and it was raining, but she realized she only had two or three cents. She just needed to sit down, so she went across the street to the Glenwood Diner, and Flo, the waitress, came up to her and said, "Are you okay, ma'am?" Coffee was five cents, so Mom gave her a penny and said, "That's all I have left, please, can I have half a cup?"«
Flo gets completely drunk and asks what's wrong. Mom says, "If I don't find a job tonight, I'm going to lose my kids. I won't have anything to feed them, and they'll go into foster care." Flo jumps up and says, "Our owner, Hugh LaRue, he's over there on the phone, trying to hire a waitress! Would you like to work for us?" Mom replies, "Yes, of course!" Flo asks, "Could you work right now?" Mom replies, "Yes, yes!" Then Flo runs over, "Hugh! Hang up, Hugh, we just hired!"«
For the next 44 years, the entire Pritchett family and their children worked at the Glenwood Sandwich Bar. The jukebox was always stocked with songs written by Q, which local connoisseurs would sing along to. By the time Larue retired, Lillian owned the establishment. Surviving floods and fires, the Pritchetts continued to operate until the state of Tennessee acquired Glenwood in 2004 through eminent domain for highway construction. Lillian was dying of cancer in the shop's final days, but she continued to work daily until she died at age 77, two months before its demolition.
Now in his seventies, James Pritchett says he has finally found peace of mind and, despite never having played an instrument in his life, plans to revive one of his father's lost songs as a tribute to him.
«"I've completely surrendered my past to the Lord. I forgive my father; he was a sick man. Now God has inspired me to write music. I've already written two Christian songs... I can't sing, I can't play an instrument, I just go to church and blurt out everything that's on my mind. Right now, I'm rehearsing one of my father's gospel songs, which he's never sung for anyone before. But I'll definitely do it someday. I'll sing his song in church for him.".
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