John T. Smith

Life and career Smith's birth date is not known for certainty, but he may have been born in the 1880s or so, as the child of Amos Smith and Hattie Webb, and to have been born in east Texas. The Texas State Historical Association gives his birth year as "between 1885 and 1890". Researcher Bob Eagle, however, suggests that he was born around 1910 in Bastrop County, Texas. He also was seen in the Dallas, Texas, area in the 1920s and 1930s, but he never recorded there. Several sources have noted that his guitar was often out of tune, even on some of his recordings, and Shaw commented that Smith was not an accomplished guitarist. He was jailed on a charge of murder and spent a few years in a Texas penitentiary.

Later recordings In 1935, he recorded some songs for the Vocalion label in Fort Worth, Texas, but they were not released.

Death It has been reported that he died in 1940, but the blues historians Bob Eagle and Eric S. LeBlanc reckoned in their published research that it was "after 1947". Eagle later suggested that, in fact, Smith died in Bastrop County, Texas, in 1979.