Reflections: G.E. Smith
When he was just starting out, G.E. Smith had a different dream than most rock-and-roll guitarists. “I never wanted to be the frontman,” he says. “From when I was a little kid, I always wanted to be a sideman, backing up good singers.”
He’s accomplished that goal many times over, catching his first big break as the featured guitarist in Hall and Oates’ band in the late ‘70s and ‘80s, and subsequently recording and touring with David Bowie, Bob Dylan and Roger Waters, among many others. From 1985 to 1995, Smith also served as the musical director of the Saturday Night Live Band, which gave him the opportunity to accompany dozens of A-list singers and players.
Despite all of those spotlight moments throughout his nearly five-decade career, the now 68-year-old, Long Island guitarist still felt something was missing—a vocalist with whom he could create a true collaborative project. “I’ve been looking for a singer for 30 years—really that long,” he says. “A great singer and a great drummer, those two are the hardest to find. If somebody’s great like that, they get snatched up right away, and I was never able to find somebody.”
That’s until one day in early 2019, when Smith heard his wife, Taylor Barton, listening to some music at home that stopped him in his tracks. “I hear this voice and I go, ‘Who is that?’” he says. “It was this guy LeRoy Bell, from Seattle. Taylor had been listening to him for a while, but I hadn’t heard him before. And I said, ‘Man, that’s the voice! That’s the guy.’”
After a little sleuthing work, the couple tracked down Bell and convinced him to fly cross-country to discuss working together. A couple of days later, they were in the studio, cutting tracks for the album that would become Stony Hill.
Bell, as it turns out, had a noteworthy résumé of his own. His uncle, Thom Bell, is a Songwriters Hall of Fame inductee and producer whose long list of credits includes hits for such soul greats as the Spinners, the Stylistics and the Delfonics. The elder Bell gave his nephew numerous songwriting tips and they, along with LeRoy’s musical partner, Casey James, co-wrote the song “Are You Ready for Love” for Elton John in 1977. Two years later, as a recording duo, Bell & James scored a No. 15 Billboard chart hit with their tune, “Livin’ It Up (Friday Night).” But despite all of their respective years in the music business, LeRoy Bell and G.E. Smith had never crossed paths until Bell received an email out of the blue.
“I said, ‘That name sounds really familiar,’” Bell recalls about his invitation to work with Smith. “Then I went, ‘Oh, yeah! I know who that is.’ Once we got together, it felt instantly familiar.”
The first song Bell played for Smith was “America,” a composition he had begun more than a decade earlier, and which now serves as one of the highlights of Stony Hill. The song is built upon his poignant commentary on the U.S., without veering into political specifics. Smith added some content to the basic song Bell presented, and they gave it a more pronounced rhythmic groove that incorporates elements of blues and hiphop. Other Bell-penned tracks include “Under These Skies” and the Smith collaboration “Change Is Coming Now,” both of which address the environmental movement, and the album-closing ballad “When I Close My Eyes,” which Smith describes as “like Sam and Dave for the 21st century.” Smith contributed “Art’s Sick,” which stems from a conversation he once had with the late New York City artist Jean-Michel Basquiat. A pair of covers—a rocked-up reworking of the traditional folk song “Black Is the Color,” and “Cod’ine,” a 1964 Buffy Sainte-Marie composition that addresses addiction—round out the set.
Stony Hill—which takes its title from a place in Smith’s neighborhood—was recorded at studios on Long Island and in Brooklyn, with Smith providing most of the guitar and Bell handling the bulk of the vocals. “I can kind of sing in a shouting way, which is OK for a limited number of songs,” says Smith, “but he can actually sing. He reminds me, in a way, of guys like Paul Rodgers.” Simon Kirke, who is best known for his work with Free and Bad Company, happens to be one of Smith’s neighbors and also shows up in the album’s credits.
“We played around with different songs; we just hit it off,” says Bell about the unexpected meeting with Smith. “It was just very easy. We’re around the same age and listened to a lot of the same stuff. We came up around the same time, though in different places.”
For Smith—whose credits also include serving as the musical director for Dylan’s 30th Anniversary Concert at Madison Square Garden and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Concert in Cleveland—the low-key nature of recording with Bell marked quite a contrast with hobnobbing in studios and playing arenas and stadiums with superstars. While he delights in telling tales of Diana Ross singing in his ear and riding in Dylan’s bus as the legend played him tape after tape of artists he thought Smith should know, the guitarist says he still sees himself as “basically, just a bar band guy.”
And, he adds, just to keep things in check, “There are plenty of guitar players around that are way better than me. I just happened to get all those gigs. It’s pure luck.”
