Following Ray Charles’s success in 1962 with Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music and Charley Pride’s first top 10-hit by a black country star in 1966, a greater number of black R&B singers took a shot at covering the Nashville sound. Among them was O.C. Smith. [Photo above of O.C. Smith]
After country composer Bobby Russell wrote Little Green Apples in 1968 for Roger (“King of the Road”) Miller, three artists took a shot at the song that year: Miller, pop vocalist Patti Page and Smith, whose version was released by Columbia that September. His soulful version reached No. 2 on Billboard’s Hot 100 and R&B charts and sold a half-million copies by November 1968.
Here’s the single…
Born Ocie Lee Smith in Louisiana in 1932, Smith moved with his parents to Little Rock, Ark. After his parents’ divorce, he moved to Los Angeles with his mother. Smith graduated with a psychology degree from Southern University and then joined the Air Force, where he began entering talent contests.
After his discharge, he wound up on Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts, a CBS radio and TV show. His appearance led to a contract with Cadence Records in 1955. But his attempts to become a star went flat after his singles for the label and MGM failed to chart.
The poor showing wasn’t due to a lack of talent. Smith not only had movie-star looks but he also had a warm, deep velvet voice perfect for jukebox singles. Much of the material he was given to record was shot-in-the-dark junk.
Count Basie saw Smith’s promise and hired him to tour with the band starting in 1961, replacing Joe Williams who had left in January of that year.
Last week, I featured three video clips of Lambert, Hendricks & Ross on Britain’s ITV in 1962 singing three Basie songs from their album Sing a Song of Basie, released in 1958 (go here).
Last week, Peter Coppock found another ITV clip featuring Lambert, Hendricks & Ross singing the Basie band arrangement of Everyday I Have the Blues, featuring O.C. Smith as lead vocalist.
Here it is (and I’ve added it to the original post)…
Smith remained with Basie until 1965, and recorded for other labels but without breakthrough hits. Just as Columbia was getting ready to release him from their contract in 1968, Smith recorded Little Green Apples as a hail-Mary attempt to land a hit. The song not only was a massive triumph for Smith, it also earned composer Bobby Russell the 1969 Grammy for Song of the Year.
Smith then recorded songs that had middling success on the Billboard adult contemporary, R&B and pop charts but nothing matched Little Green Apples.
But fame did not elude Smith. In the 1980s, a little-known regional dance movement called Carolina beach music (or the Carolina shag) was revived.
The Carolina shag is believed to have originated along the Atlantic coast in Cherry Grove Beach, S.C. during the 1940s. It then received its name at Carolina Beach. The dance was an off-shoot of the Carolina Jitterbug and its predecessor, the Little Apple—the white version of the Big Apple, which had originated in Columbia, S.C., in 1937.
In the late 1950s and 1960s, Carolina beach music became popular again at coastal clubs and boardwalks as uptempo Motown and other soul records were released.
Here’s a collection of 1960s Carolina beach music…
Back then, the Carolina shag was a partner dance done to an uptempo beat and a merger of the stroll and swing. The shag became the official state dance of South Carolina in 1984 and the official popular dance of North Carolina in 2005. Shag contests began in the early 1980s.
Here’s what the Carolina shag looks like…
O.C. Smith had many Carolina beach hits. The biggest was Brenda. Here he is performing the song at the Third Annual Beach Music Awards, on Nov. 19, 1988, at Reynolds Coliseum on the campus of North Carolina State University…
Smith’s 1986 album Whacha Gonna Do is worth a listen. It was a huge success on the charts and featured Carolina beach hits: Brenda, You’re the First, My Last, My Everything and Spark of Love. Other shag classics by Smith include The Best Out of Me, After All Is Said and Done, Doin’ the Shag, I’m in Love and Save the Last Dance for Me, which topped the local Rhythm n’ Beach Top 40 chart.
You can listen to Smith’s iconic catalog on his Beach Music Greatest Hits album on Spotify.
O.C. Smith died on Nov. 23, 2001, of a heart attack at age 69. Shortly after his death, South Carolina governor Jim Hodges proclaimed June 21, 2002, “O.C. Smith Day.” Smith was posthumously elected to the Carolina Beach Music Hall of Fame in November 2002.
Bonus: Here’s O.C. Smith’s complete Together (1977) album…
Here’s Smith on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1971…
And here’s a collection of Smith’s beach music, one track at a time (this album is killer; to listen on Prime or buy via digital download, go here)…
For much more on O.C. Smith, go here.