About this artist
Grant Maloy Smith is the very definition of a journeyman musician, working steadily as a bandleader, film composer, and singer/songwriter for decade after decade. He got started as a pop musician, leading a band called Britannia in the ’80s, but he moved into Americana in 2012, gaining attention for his 2013 album YELLOW TRAILER and 2017 album DUST BOWL: AMERICAN STORIES.
A native of Jacksonville, Florida, Grant Maloy Smith fell in love music as a child, learning how to play guitar in Florida at the age of 5. He went to art school, but ended up focusing on music, forming the band BRITANNIA in 1981. Smith married in 1985 and put his music briefly on hold. In the early 1990s he started composing scores for independent films, starting with CODE OF ETHICS starring Oscar® winning Melissa Leo. During the late ’90s and into the 2000s, his most prominent work was as a composer for independent films, including the sexy thriller PRAY FOR POWER, starring Playboy model Lisa Boyle.
Smith revived his songwriting career in 2001 with American Merman. It was the first of three pop albums that appeared in the 2000s on his own Small Dog Records label. In 2012, Smith decided to shift from pop to Americana, releasing the album YELLOW TRAILER the following year. During the next few years, Smith performed regularly in both America and Europe, writing the material that would feature on the 2017 album DUST BOWL: AMERICAN STORIES, which was released on Suburban Cowboy Records. This album reached #1 on Billboard’s Heatseekers chart in July of 2017 and spent 11 weeks in the Top Ten of the Americana/Folk Album Sales chart, even reaching #12 on Billboard's Country Music album sales chart.
The album propelled Smith toward his Carnegie Hall debut in 2018. In the wake of its success, Smith released his “Man of Steel” single in the same year, and the song was chosen by the National Veterans Foundation as their official theme song. Also in 2018, Smith issued “Fly Possum Fly,” a holiday-themed children’s song that accompanied his book of the same name. Another possum production, “The Possumbilities Are Endless,” followed in 2019, as did “I See You,” which was recorded in support of elder care foundation Masterpiece Living. Early in 2020, Smith released the EP OUR COUNTRY, VOL#1, which was quickly followed by the “Old Black Roller” single and “Waiting for the Good Old Days Again,” a tune written about the COVID-19 pandemic. He continued his "American Stories" theme albums with APPLACHIA: AMERICAN STORIES, released in 2021, and his first ever Christmas album THE CHRISTMAS HEART, released in 2022. He also made his second appearance at Carnegie Hall in April 2022.