Thursday, February 15, 2007
Memories of Roy Smeck
Roy Smeck had a personal letter from Ronald Reagan because they shared a birthday
Sadly, Roy's memory about the Vaudeville days weren't so good. I wanted to
hear about the "Ziegfeild Follies" showdancer that took him to the cleaners! Like I said before, at least he could still play!
I once brought up the name Eddie Peabody to Roy. "He stole my act" he grumbled. I
never brought Eddie up again. Since then I've researched Eddie, and guess what? Roy was absolutely right, Eddie had stolen his act! It's a shame Roy couldn't sing.
One Saturday, I brought Cynthia over to meet Roy and she played for him. Roy wasn't about to be musically outdone by a girl so he ripped off a solo that had my jaw on the floor. I taped all my lessons with him, but my recorder was a little "flaky",
and it that was unfortunatly one of the moments it chose not to record. It was the only time during my lessons that I had ever heard Roy REALLY play! Anyway. I've got a box of tapes of our lessons together. I would come over on Saturday and for an hour his wife Faye could get out and do shopping.
The famous Japanese banjo collector Akira Tsamura once offered Roy $30,000 for his B&D #9. I'm sure Faye was livid about that one! I wanted the earlier B&D #4 he had.
I was out of town when he died and his estate was auctioned off. I would have
loved to bid on some of those treasures. He had cases of arrangements(mostly inked by hand by Harry Reser and he still had the Martin #0 uke he played most of his career. I wish I knew what happened to that beat up gem.
Best wishes, Nathan Garret
