Darden Smith Biography

Darden Smith Biography

During Taxis singer-songwroter's Darden Smith's 20 year career he has recorded folk, country and pop songs.  His first album was released in 1986, and after developing a following was picked up by Epic. The 1988 release Native soil had its single "Little Maggie" place in the charts. Over the next 5 years Smith released 2 more albums and gained in critical acclaim, however was dropped from Epic's roster. Since then he has released 7 more recordings. 'Ojo', his first live recording, is the latest. He has toured  every state except for Hawaii and South Dakota, playing to crowds as small as he and a bartender in Asbury Park, NJ to 9,000 adoring and lace-wrapped fans of Stevie Nicks when he opened her 1993 tour of the US. He's been on the Tonight Show a couple of times, Austin City Limits, and recently his song, 'Loving Arms' has recieved low rotation on radio stations. Outside of what he considers his 'day job' of writing songs, making cds and touring, he has written music for dance theater, done commercials for radio and tv, and had songs placed on network tv. The Austin Symphony commissioned his work, "Grand Motion" in 1999. His newest theater piece, "Marathon," a collaboration with Austin writer/musician Jesse Sublett, is in production with the University of Texas Performing Arts Center. In what began as a sideline/hobby, Darden's "Be An Artist Program" contiues to bring the message that "we are all artists, all we have to do is fall in love with something, and then do it" to children in schools, museums, festivals and institutions. Since its beginning in 2003, the program has been presented all across the US and UK.