Country Music Hall of Fame member Carl Smith, one of the genre’s most successful singers and entertainers during the 1950s, died yesterday at his home in Franklin, Tennessee. He was 82.
According to CMT, Smith has been out of the spotlight for a long time, having taken an unusually early retirement in 1977, when he was just 50 years old. When younger CMA electors finally elected him into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2003, Smith’s few seconds back on national TV consisted of a silent smile and a wave to his well-deserved standing ovation. Then he went back to his quiet life as a farmer and horse breeder, despite the fact that both his wives (June Carter and Goldie Hill) and his daughter (Carlene Carter) were popular singers.
Smith had a slow and steady rise to success when his song “Let’s Live a Little,” made the Top 10 in 1951. It was followed later that year by “Mr. Moon” and “If Teardrops Were Pennies.” In 1951, Smith scored his first #1 record, “Let Old Mother Nature Have Her Way,” which sold nearly a million copies. The next year he repeated his winning formula with ”(When You Feel Like You’re in Love) Don’t Just Stand There” and a double-sided smash with the Louvin Brothers’ “Are You Teasing Me” and Boudleaux Bryant’s “It’s a Lovely, Lovely World.” Bryant also wrote the two biggest hits of Smith’s many in 1953, “Just Wait Till I Get You Alone” and the immortal “Hey Joe.” Smith stayed on the country charts every year between 1951 and 1973.
