About
Jay Smith
"Smitty"
Instruments: Guitar, Vocals
details
Formerly known as “Smitty Kingston," Jay has been a mainstay of the city's music scene for over 25 years, playing thousands of shows during that time. A solo country/rock artist and singer/songwriter, Jay has shared the stage with great musicians like The Tragically Hip, Tom Cochrane, Blue Rodeo, Kim Mitchell, David Wilcox, Dan Aykroyd and more.Since the young age of 6 when Jay got his first drum set then 9 with the piano and finally landing on guitar at 12 Jay’s love of music has done nothing but grow and grow. Jay wrote his first songs around the age of 15 and started playing in bands around the same time, touring around Ontario and to the west coast of Canada playing live music has been Jay’s only job for over 20 years.
Constantly trying to achieve greatness Jay has never let the difficulty of the music business define him. In April 2018 there was a horrible accident in Saskatchewan that involved a bus loaded with the Humboldt Broncos hockey team headed for a playoff game, 16 people lost there lives and the news was everywhere and became a world wide story. One night after a show Jay came home to this news and couldn’t sleep thinking about the loss of lives on that bus and he sat down and in 20 mins wrote a song called "Stick out by the Door (Humboldt Strong)" the song instantly went viral and millions of people streamed the song shared the phone made video everywhere and Jay was on the international stage. Donating all royalties from the song to support the team in helping recover from this tragedy.
Jay also travelled many times out west to play many charities which raised hundreds of thousands of dollars to help the families. Jay also played the funeral service for 4 of the boys lost that day in Edmonton at the Rogers place Center with Paul Brandt where 10,000-plus people were in attendance.
Over the years Jay has shared the stage with many amazing artists such as Gilbey Clarke and Bumblefoot of Guns n' Roses, I Mother Earth , Paul Brandt, Blue Rodeo, Daniel Wesley, Ambush, The Tragically Hip, Jim Cuddy, The Glorious Sons, David Wilcox ,Kim Mitchell, Tom Cochrane, Dan Aykroyd, Chase Rice, and many others. Most recently Jay has been working on a new EP of original songs in Toronto with Derek Downham as producer, Tim Foy (engineer) Bazil Donovan of Blue Rodeo (bass guitar) and Kelly Prescott (vocals) and mix and master engineer Josh G. Bowman.
Jay still lives in Kingston where he was born and raised. His wife Lauren and their 2 daughters enjoy family time when Jay isn’t on the road or in studio.
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Jay Smith brings Nashville north with The Buckle
Kingston Live podcast episode 74
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Kingston Live
Author: Rob Howard
