Bennie Smith
For well over fifty years Bennie Smith has been one of St. Louis' outstanding guitarists. Bennie first gained his notoriety with the Roosevelt Marks Band, his style being smooth yet very powerful and all his own. In 1963 Mr. Smith recorded with a young Ike & soon to be Tina Turner, (she was still Anne Lee Bullock then). They recorded what would be the first hit of the young couples career; a song called "Boxtop". Over the past Five decades Bennie has performed with many of the most influential performers in Rhythm & Blues including: Little Milton, Oliver Sain, Johnnie Johnson, Gatemouth Brown, The Drifters, Hubert Sumlin, Matt Murphy, Amos Milburn, Aretha Franklin, Larry Davis Jr, Earl Hooker, Ike & Tina Turner, Jimmy Reed, Albert King, Fontella Bass, Henry Townsend, Rufus Thomas, Billy Galyes. The list goes on from there.
Bennie was a featured artist with blues men like Big Bad Smitty in the early nineteen nineties. He Toured Europe with an all-star Band including Big Bad Smitty, Rayburn Hayes, and Durious Montgomery. In 1993 Bennie finally went into the recording studio releasing "The Urban Soul of Bennie Smith". In 1995 he and Sharon Foehner founded "Bennie Smith & the Urban Blues Express". In 2001 Bennie took his current band "The Urban Blues Express" into the studio and recorded "Shook Up" for the Fedora Label. The C.D.Has received critical acclaim all over Europe. Amazon .com has listed Bennie's C.D. "Shook Up", and it has reached the top ten on the Rhythm & Blues list in Europe.
Copyright 2005-209
Schunk Entertainment 314.646.7757