Roger Smith, Instrumental and Smooth jazz Artist

Over his career, many artists have benefited from his diverse musical repertoire and piano/keyboard skills. He has accompanied and played with artists from the blues, country, pop and jazz music genres, and is a member of the legendary band, Tower of Power. In the 1990s he branched out on his own and released his first single “Off The Hook,” which reached number one on the charts. Meet this week’s Featured Artist: pianist/keyboardist – Roger Smith

Born in Dallas, Texas, USA

Genre: Smooth/contemporary Jazz, Soul Jazz

Roger Smith was born to play the Hammond organ, and destined to become a member of Tower of Power. Since 1998, Roger has been a part of the Tower Sound, drawing on all of his earlier experiences and influences to lead him to where he is today.

From the time he was a child Roger played piano and took music lessons. His early musical education began in church but because of creative limitations he soon lost interest. At that time, Roger and his family had moved from Texas to Sacramento, CA. As fate would have it, a fellow 6th grader who lived down the street had an uncle who’s occupation would change young Roger’s musical tastes forever. Philadelphia’s Jimmy McGriff, a legendary jazz organist had a brother that lived just a few doors down from the Smith’s. During a visit, Roger was introduced to a sound that fascinated him, the Hammond B-3 organ. Jimmy McGriff taught him a couple of signature blues songs, “Down The Road A Piece” and “Little Red Rooster”. From that time on the keyboard, and the Hammond organ in particular, became an important part of Roger’s life.

After spending some time in the service, Roger, now 20 years old and living in Austin, Texas, formed a band called “Blind Mellon”. His band mates in Blind Mellon were very young Eric Johnson on guitar, and Roscoe Beck on bass. Roger was honing his keyboard skills and becoming well known in the area. At this point, he was ready to move from the garage to the stage. In 1971, Roger was given an opportunity to fill in for a member of Freddie King’s band for about 5 weeks. This would be another life-changing event that led Roger to work with many other artists such as Leon Russell, Joe Cocker, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, and Louden Wainwright III.

Now residing in the capitol of CA, about an hour from the East Bay area, Roger had heard about Tower of Power and went to see them perform many times even before they added keyboardist Chester Thompson. Smith recalls “When I saw Tower of Power with Chester Thompson, well no one sounded like him. His style is very unique.” Now working as a professional musician, Roger was a member of “Sunbear” which was the house band for the immensely popular television show “Soul Train”. Roger held that position for and was on the road after that with artists like Gladys Knight, Harvey Mandel, Jeff Beck, and Jan Hammer. Smith refers to himself as a utility player at that point in time, working in many different situations as a keyboard artist.

One of Roger’s friends happened to be Norbert Stachel, Tower of Power’s lead tenor sax player at that time. At a time when Tower was making some personnel changes, Norbert suggested that the band listen to Roger Smith, and as a result, he has been TOP’s keyboard player ever since. According to Roger, when he is on stage with Tower of Power, he goes through many different emotions. Smith says when they are in the groove, “It’s the best feeling there is.”

Touring extensively with Tower of Power, Roger gets to all parts of the US, Europe, and Asia each year. Still, Roger finds time to play gigs with other Northern CA musicians, and has a solo career with many solo CD’s to his credit. Roger’s latest projects include the release of Jazz Roscos “Rosco’s Place II” and has produced a cd by a new up and coming pop artist, Robbie Christmas.

Biographical information courtesy of Roger Smith’s website
Visit Roger on the web:

http://www.rogersmith.net
http://www.jazzrosco.com
http://www.myspace.com/rogersmithmusic