An accomplished guitar player and charted Christian country songwriter, these days TJ Smith most enjoys creating vocal impersonations for the Rockbox Theater. Photo by Phil Houseal

Details:
TJ Smith performs with the Rockbox Theater and also gives guitar lessons. He can be reached at tjsmithmusic@yahoo.com.

Showtimes for Rockbox Theater are Friday - 8 PM, Saturday - 4:30 & 8 PM, Sunday - 1:30 PM.

webmaster: phil@fullhouseproductions.net

TJ Smith: Any Beatle he wants to be

by Phil Houseal
June 2, 2010

When he was a lad, TJ Smith wanted to be a Beatle. But his older brother got first pick.

“My brother always got to be Paul, so I was George or John.”

It didn’t matter to Smith which Beatle he was, as long as he was playing guitar.

“I thought, yeah, that’s how you’re cool - when you play guitar.”

He got his first guitar at Christmas when he was 13. That’s when he knew for sure that playing music was what he wanted to do. He started learning chords, and went out and bought - of course - The Beatles Complete Songbook.

“I opened it up and realized that, wow, I can play these songs. They even had little pictures of the guitar. I just took off.”

He got his hands on songbooks for Chicago, America, and Bachman-Turner-Overdrive. As soon as he knew four chords he starting writing his own songs (“They were really bad too”) and singing. Along his musical journey, Smith met up with musicians, formed bands, and learned the leads to songs of his era. It was perfect training for his future job - playing, singing, and recreating all the music legends as a permanent cast member at the Rockbox Theater in Fredericksburg.

But his first real gig was with a 3-piece Christian rock band in Hereford, Texas.

“We performed at a political rally,” he recalled. “There were 75 people there for a guy running for congress. It was in a high school gym and we played 10 songs - that’s all we knew. Nobody paid attention to us, but we loved it.”

By the late 1980s, Smith had moved from high school gyms to Billy Bob’s. It was while leading worship in the bullriding arena at the famous Fort Worth club that Smith had an epiphany.

“I realized there was either Amy Grant (doing Christian music) or Reba McEntire (doing country music) - nobody was in the middle doing country music for Christians.”

At the time he was playing Top 40 country and classic rock and roll in nightclubs, then leading worship on Sunday. So he decided to start combining the styles himself. He traveled full time, playing his original brand of Christian country. Over the years he charted nine singles on the Christian country charts, and had several top 20 hits.

Smith left the grind of traveling in 1997 to go back into construction, building homes and working with Habitat for Humanity around Fort Worth. In 2006 he happened to drive by the theater in Granbury. He wondered if the popular Granbury Live ever brought in guest artists. So he sent them a video of himself doing music impressions.

“They asked me to come out for an audition,” Smith said. “The first piece we worked up was Act Naturally. I did it with all my impressions: Buck, Ringo, Willie, John Anderson, Dwight Yoakum.”

Smith joined the cast. When they moved the show to Fredericksburg three years ago, Smith came along, and now gets to be any Beatle he wants to be in the Rockbox show. And although he learned the guitar leads to most of the songs decades ago, it is another instrument that drives him.

“If had to choose one thing - what has become passionate for me the last six years - it is doing vocal impressions,” he said. “I got all the rest of it out of my system. I wrote 400 songs, I know I can play guitar. But I’ve always loved impersonating people.”

He knows the audience is not reacting to TJ Smith, but to the artistry of the entertainers he is mimicking. And that is all right with Smith.