Thursday, April 14, 2011

Kid Smith on Station WINC

This is a song booklet for Walter "Kid" Smith and his Rhythm Makers. You will note that it is labeled 'Book No 4' on the front cover above. I have no idea if Kid Smith has three other song books out there or not. It may have been a series of WINC-AM performers. The book is also missing the center folio, so pages 15-18 are absent from this scan.

From the cover it's evident he was on 1400 WINC-AM in Winchester, VA. WINC was founded in 1941 by Richard F. Lewis, Jr who was already an alum of WFVA-AM.  Smith was born in 1895. Kip Lornell describes him in the book Virginia's Blues, Country & Gospel Records.
"He worked as a sawyer and a boxer and learned the rudiments of guitar playing. But Smith was primarily a vocalist who specialized in the sacred and minstrel show songs that he learned from his father."
He released a number of sides with friends and or with family a wife Thelma and two daughters. He performed with his family in medicine shows and on radio programs. His best selling record was probably "The Cat's Got The Measles, The Dog's Got The Whooping Cough" which was released in 1929 on Gennett. He also recorded some murder ballads that were at least of note to record collectors. Most of his sides were released on Victor and Columbia. As recently as 1966 he had a program on WHPL-AM in Winchester, VA. (Kip Lornell  typoed the callsign as WPHL in his book.) The station was owned by Shenval Broadcasting in 1966. Kid Smith died in 1977.

His song book can be downloaded 

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