Smitty: But this is a great record, man. But your career didn’t begin here with this record, obviously. You started playing the bass, what, 10, 12 years old?
DSS: Yeah, about 12 years old.
Smitty: Why of all instruments, why the bass?
DSS: Well, I’ll tell you, I didn’t realize I had a love for bass. My first love was drums. I played drums in elementary and junior high school bands. One day I just went to the bass player, I think I was maybe in the seventh grade, and I said, “Man, can you just show me how to play that song?” He was playing Stevie Wonder’s “I Wish.”
Smitty: Whoo!
DSS: Bass line. I said “Man, show me how to do that.” He showed me the song. Smitty, I played it better than he did and I had never touched the bass, and it was over.
Smitty: Wow. Now, who was this?
DSS: It was a guy by the name of Ronald Bolden. He was the bass player in the junior high school band here in D.C., Maryland, and ironically, he married my cousin. Isn’t that interesting?
Smitty: (Laughs)
DSS: He’s family now. This brother, he showed me one song and that was it.
Smitty: Wow.
DSS: Isn’t that something?
Smitty: That’s incredible. So you just drop-kicked the drums?
DSS: Drop-kicked the drums, drop-kicked sports, I wanted to be a pro ball player, you know, and that was while I was in high school I just walked off the field.
Smitty: (Laughs)
DSS: All I had on my mind was bass.
Smitty: How ‘bout that?
DSS: Isn’t that something? Never turned back. It’s been a blessing.
Smitty: That’s totally cool, man. So as you were developing your skills in high school and beyond, at what point did you say to yourself “I wanna do this full-time. I wanna get in there with the right cats and make some music”?
DSS: Well, I think the dream was there very soon after I picked up the bass. Maybe a couple of years later I started thinking “This is what I wanna do.” And like I said, by late high school I was sure, and so I joined the high school jazz band and started playing jazz and learning how to read, learning music, and I went up to Howard University, I wanted to go there and study jazz. I didn’t quite know enough music at that time and so I auditioned and they said “Nah, you don’t know quite enough to make it here,” so a buddy of mine said “Man, I’m going in the Air Force, man,” and I checked into the Air Force, they had a program, they paid for your school. I said “I’m going into the Air Force. Let them pay for my school to study music.” So I went that route, I did four years there, I came out, I was ready. I went back to D.C. for a year and then I hit L.A.
Smitty: Man. Do you remember your first club date?
DSS: First club date was Larry Seals Quartet, Georgetown, D.C., The Saloon.
Smitty: (Laughs)
DSS: LSQ, Larry Seals Quartet, a great band. Guys like Marshall Keys were around at that time.
Smitty: Wow.
DSS: Kevin Toney, you know.
Smitty: Yeah.
DSS: So I did that for about a year and then I went off to L.A., man.
Smitty: Now, let me ask you something because I’m always curious about musicians and picking their instrument. At what point did you become very selective about which bass you wanted to play. You know what I mean? What brand? What style? At what point did you get to where you said “Now I wanna kick it up a notch. I want this kind of a bass.”
DSS: That’s an interesting question. That’s a good question. Most people wouldn’t ask that question (both laughing), but it’s a very significant question. I was playing the Stanley Clarke bass, the Olympic, and I was trying to be Stanley Clarke, you know, 18 years old, but when I got in the Air Force I heard about Marcus Miller.
Smitty: I can just imagine listening to Marcus at that age.
DSS: And, man, I said, now listening to that sound was so incredible. I went down to the music store in Austin, Texas, to find that sound, and they said you need to play this bass, Fender Jazz Bass, and then I found out that’s the bass Larry Graham played, Marcus Miller, all the groove players of the 70’s, you know?
Smitty: Yeah, man.
DSS: So I traded in my $1,200 Olympic for a $400 Fender Jazz.
Smitty: That’s sweet dude.
DSS: And I still have that bass. It’s on a hundred records.
Smitty: Wow.
DSS: Isn’t that something?
Smitty: (Laughs)
DSS: And that’s it, man, that’s my sound, Fender Jazz.
Smitty: But don’t you think that that’s a turning point not only your career, but in the whole process of thinking about making music, when you find that instrument, it’s like a carpenter finding the right hammer that fits his hand and he can sling it with that hammer, you know?
DSS: Oh yes, very much so, very much so. I can play, for instance, a Stanley Clarke type bass or a Kent Smith bass or something, which are great basses, but the feel, the sound, the tone of it would not bring across “Smitty” Smith’s expressions like a Fender Jazz. It’s just built for my style and my sound and the way I express.
Smitty: I totally feel ya, man.
DSS: That style of bass you play is very important. It’s everything, yeah.
Smitty: And you could feel that because when you’re listening to any musician, really. And they have come into their own with that instrument and this is their instrument of choice you know it.
DSS: Right, right, right.
Smitty: Yeah. Oh, that’s very cool. Well, I must say, man, that one of the reasons why I’m so glad that we finally get to have this conversation, it’s so that you and I can both tell people who we are.
DSS: Who is “Smitty” Smith?
