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March 21, 2024

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Spring Housing Guide

Corey Smith finds himself back in the area after over a year

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Progressive country artist Corey Smith will bring his songs about life, love and the lack thereof to the Cla-zel tonight for his second concert here in over a year.

Smith’s songs serve as the biographies of booze-filled Saturday nights and their corresponding Sundays of regret. He has attracted a robust fanbase focused in the college demographic, built brick-by-brick, and his own hands bear specks of the mortar.

From the classroom to the barroom

Getting into songwriting as a teenager, he started taking his work to local bar stages as a student at the University of Georgia.

After graduation Smith went on to teach social studies at a Georgia high school, but continued to play and write music. As his crowds grew, the decision to pursue music in full became more of a mandate than option, with shows paying as much or more than a week’s paycheck as an educator.

“It just got to the point where I realized I could better provide for my family playing music,” he said. “That made the choice for me pretty easy.”

Music has been Smith’s full-time focus now for five years and his Georgia-centered tour has swung to wider swaths of geography. He has sold over 750,000 singles and over 150,000 albums, not counting those obtained through the file-sharing he openly encourages.

Smith’s success has been achieved without any radio play, label support or publicity team behind him. His homegrown promotion efforts not only caught the attention of fans, but too landed him national media attention with a profile story published in The Washington Post. He admitted to feeling the pressure of expectations wrought by his success, particularly the strain over whether to give fans what they want, or to give them what he needs.

“In the end all I can really do is be true to myself,” he said.

“If that’s country, then country really sucks”

Smith remains incredulous at his own prosperity. His songs have the simple, straightforward sound of artists like Jack Johnson, but with a quasi-country folk feel that puts it easily into the backyards of small-town America. Despite grossing over $4 million last year, Smith lives in the same Georgia town where he grew up, with a population a third that of Bowling Green. His music has a realness country might if it shed its shrink-wrap, and this he believes has allowed him his success.

“I like to think it’s just because it’s honest,” he said. “I think people appreciate that it’s not all polished, prepackaged and formulaic.”

In his song “If That’s Country” Smith criticizes mainstream country, and Kenny Chesney specifically. He stressed that while there are some great artists coming out of Nashville, there are “a lot of fake people there too.”

“I don’t think a lot of country music really empowers people from the country, it just exploits them,” he said. “I don’t really appreciate that.”

Senior John Hrovatich is a Corey Smith fan, though he deeply loathes conventional country. He said anyone skeptical of Smith’s concert because of preconceived opinions on country music, should reconsider their position.

“It’s not that normal country s***,” he said. “There definitely won’t be anyone there rockin’ their beer gut.”

“Stealin’ kisses, wishin’ I was twenty-one”

Smith’s mellow-nostalgic “Twenty-One,” is a song commonly cited favorite among fans, Hrovatich included.

The track sets a subtle tone anyone who traversed their high school years without the most mindful eye to the lines of authority can easily relate to. In the song, Smith sings about his early days’ thrills and perils of drinking underage, with a longing eye to the golden age of 21.

Senior Melissa Cho cited the song as one of her favorites. She first heard the song prior to turning 21 and found identification she said can be shared by many.

“I think people hear that song and listen to the lyrics and think, ‘oh my God, that’s so true,”‘ she said. “Corey Smith can relate to how people feel and what they’ve been through. He understands where people are coming from and he’s able to incorporate that into his lyrics.”

Smith still laughs about the popularity of the song and said he never expected it to be a hit. It was written in his bedroom a few days prior to playing a show in his hometown, for many of his friends from high school and college.

“I just did it for kicks, you know, I just wrote it for my buddies. I guess that’s why it became so popular. There’s no agenda there,” he said.

Building believers out of naysayers

Corey Smith’s concert tonight will be a return visit after playing Bowling Green for the first time last year at the Cla-zel. Doors will open at 7:00 p.m. with a $20 ticket price and Smith will take the stage following opener Ingram Hill.

JC Lashaway, 24, is a musician and former Bowling Green resident whose initial appreciation for Smith’s music was tepid at best, though he acknowledged envy played a role.

“Pretty much my thing was that I was jealous,” he said. “He was making music that was so simple and pretty much sounded to me like rambling, and people loved it. I couldn’t understand that.”

After seeing him live last year, Lashaway started to warm to Smith’s sound and honesty. Hearing songs at the concert he had not heard before, he started to appreciate all the styles Smith dabbled in and the connection others were making.

“He’s all about downhome roots and making good music for what it’s worth and not getting in with all the fame,” he said. “He just loves having fun with music and it’s not about whether it’s going to sell; it’s about creating a song people can relate to.”

With Smith’s concerts continuing to grow, it appears this realization is likely to spread.

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