Biography
Discography: Mayne's Recorded Performances
Discography: Songs Written by Mayne
Bibliography: Mayne's Publications

An Informal Autobiography

Born in 1939, I grew up with younger sisters Janet and Harriet in the family of Professor Henry Nash Smith, a prominent expert on Mark Twain and the literature of the American west. My parents had lots of folk music records. They paid for books and voice and guitar lessons, and they let me start singing in Episcopal church choirs at age 10 (my first professional gig). But I grew up knowing that I was leading a privileged life in a scary world where millions of good people weren't getting a fair shake.

We moved to Berkeley when I was 14. At my new junior high I met Neil Rosenberg <www.mun.ca/folklore/people/Rosenberg.php> and we started playing guitars and singing songs we learned from Leadbelly and Woody. On through high school and two years of college we kept learning new songs and playing with and for more people, adding, in particular, Scott Hambly to our picking circle. You can read about the Redwood Canyon Ramblers elsewhere on MayneSmith.com. By my junior year in college in 1960 I was an experienced performer in the folk music revival movement and a neophyte bluegrasser.

Flowing in the most natural direction, I got an M.A. degree in folklore studies and published articles in Sing Out! and elsewhere. (It turned out that my 1965 "Introduction to Bluegrass" in the Journal of American Folklore was an academic groundbreaker; it has been reprinted and footnoted over and over.) I spent much of the 1960s performing at folk festivals and folk music nightclubs in Oberlin OH and Bloomington IN, as well as California, as both a folkie and a bluegrass musician. Having transferred to UCLA, over the next four years I hung out at the Ash Grove and McCabe's Guitar Shop and picked with people like Ry Cooder, Taj Mahal, John Fahey, Bobby Kimmel, Mark LeVine, David Lindley, Richard Greene, and Peter Feldmann. The commercial music world was opening up to roots-based innovations.

Suddenly I was 26 and didn't need my student deferment from Vietnam any more. Michael Martin Murphey praised a slight song I'd written and turned on a switch in my psyche. I retired from post-graduate work at UCLA. I was lonely and passionate enough to power a bunch of new songs. I also had huge fun as part of a new era when it had become possible to make a living playing funky, authentic music. For a while I appeared solo as a singer-songwriter, but I preferred being part of a group. Along with my lead singing I was good at finding harmonies, and I could function as a sideman on rhythm guitar, dobro, and eventually on pedal steel. I learned about playing with drummers for dancers. On the folk music scene, I was somebody who could supply a country or rock feel. In the electric music world I offered experience with folk and old-time music.

The rest of my musical life has continued on the course established back then. Centered in the S.F. Bay Area since 1969, I've played with a bunch of bands in many styles - bluegrass, country-rock, folk-rock, and commercial country. I've spent decades in a perpetual but occasional collaboration with Mitch Greenhill that resulted in two albums (see the discographies, below). I was also blessed with a trustworthy connection to the business side of music through Folklore Productions, the company Mitch has inherited from his father, Manny, and is passing along to his son, Matt.

In the early 1980s I was the ringleader of a band called Alternate Roots that played the original Freight & Salvage Coffeehouse almost like a house band for several years, always with a guest star whose chosen songs we'd work up in one rehearsal. It started with me, Rick Epping, Ray Bierl, and Johnny Harper (Lumsdaine); soon Alan Senauke and Sam Siggins joined. Tony Marcus and Markie Sanders also came on board well before the Freight's situation changed and the band retired (except for a reunion gig at the Freight in 1998).

During much of the 1980s and 1990s, I had less time and energy to spend on music because I was on the Board of the new non-profit Freight & Salvage, and I also had to get serious about day-gigging. To my good fortune, my timing and talent were right to become a professional in computer-based publishing. With the formidable support of Gail Wilson-Smith, whom I married in 1983 and who has had a distinguished career as a public school teacher and administrator, I was able to retire from salaried work in 2002 after four years at a non-profit organization that helped disadvantaged veterans of the U.S. armed forces.

Several years ago, Johnny Harper was producing an album project for a mutual friend. I went along for the ride, getting off on the music and realizing that Johnny's working style really suited me. We got to talking, and Johnny agreed to produce an album of me performing my own songs with the multiple mixtures of musicians they needed to sound just right. These included a bluegrass band based on the guys I'd been playing with since 1956, a hot electric country-rock unit, and several different semi-acoustic combos. The CD, Places I've Been, was released in June 2008.

Who knows what happens next, in these troubled but promising times?

Discography:
Mayne's Recorded Performances

Year	Artist	Album Title	Label/number	My participation
1962?	Toni Brown	—	Arhoolie 45-505	Dobro, 2 sides
1965	John Fahey	Transfiguration of Blind Joe Death	Takoma TAK-7051 (rereleased 1997 on TAKCD-6504)	Banjo, 2 cuts
1967	Hearts & Flowers	Now Is the Time	Capitol T2762	Dobro, 1 cut
1971	Rosalie Sorrels	Travelin' Lady	Sire SI 5902	Dobro, pedal steel, guitars (with the Frontier band)
1971	Jim Kweskin	Jim Kweskin's America	Reprise RS 6464	Dobro, guitar, vocals
1972	Various artists	Berkeley Farms	Folkways FA2436	Pedal steel, 1 cut
1974	C.W. Strode	"Buckinghorse Rider" b/w "Where's My Wine?"	World Records 45 WOR-00321	Pedal steel
1978	Toby Mountain	Journeys	Camelback CAM8850	Steel, 1 cut
1979	Adina Alpert	Feel a Change	Josemy JR1001	Dobro, 6 cuts
1979	Greenhill/Smith	Storm Coming	Bay 215	Vocals, dobro, pedal steel, guitar
1979	Art Peterson	"Twinkie Insanity" b/w "The Ballad of Dan White"	Bay 503 and 504 — 45s	Dobro, guitar, vocals

1980	Any Old Time	Ladies Choice	Bay 217	Pedal steel, 1 cut
1981	Barry Melton	Songs of the Next Depression	Rag Baby INT 147407	Dobro, 1 cut
1981	Van Rozay	Van Rozay from San Jose	Golden Vanity GVR 40	Dobro
1983	Neal Hellman	Dulcimer Airs...	Kicking Mule	Dobro, pedal steel
1984	Rory McNamara	Still Got That Look in His Eye	Kicking Mule KM 323	Dobro, pedal steel
1985	David Rea	Feelin' Good	Canadian River Music CRM001C	Dobro
1985	Gerry Tenney	Heart Will Carry On	Lost Tribe 001	Dobro, pedal steel
1986	Greenhill/Smith	Back Where We've Never Been	Bennett House cassette BHR 107	Dobro, guitar, vocals
1986	Peter Kessler and Gail Fratar	Just Dreaming	Swallow	Pedal steel, 1 cut
1987	Arhoolie Records 25th Anniversary Party	It's Got to Be Rough and Sweet	Arhoolie video ARV 402	Pedal steel on 4 songs with Rose Maddox
1993	Rich Wilber	In the City	Sophronie 545	Pedal steel, 1 cut
1993	Moonlight Rodeo (Kurt Huget)	Rio Lindo	Santa Venetia Records SVR 200	Dobro, 1 cut
1994	Various artists	Out On the Rolling Sea	Green Linnet GLCD 3095	Dobro, 1 cut (with M. Greenhill, "Carmen Goes to Bimini")
1995	Rosalie Sorrels	Borderline Heart	Green Linnet GLCD 2119	Dobro, pedal steel
1995	Father Son Band (Patrick Flynn)	Relativity	Silverado (no number)	Dobro

1995	Wayde Blair	Kentucky Windage	Self-released	Dobro, pedal steel
1998	Geoff Muldaur	The Secret Handshake	Hightone HCD 8097	Dobro, I cut
1999	Kirsten Falke (singing) & Dale Zola (composer)	The Breeze at Dawn (Poems of Rumi in Song)	Mahatti Records MR 500	Pedal steel, 3 cuts
1999	Jane Voss	Farther Down the Road	Ripple 004	Dobro, 1 cut
1999	Moonlight Rodeo (Kurt Huget)	Demo album	Santa Venetia Records SVR01	Steel and dobro
2000	Crooked Jades	The Unfortunate Rake, Volume One	Crooked 003	Steel, 2 cuts
2002	Various artists	Gary Davis Style	Inside Sounds ISC0508	Dobro, 1 cut ("Samson and Delilah"w/Mitch Greenhill)
2007	Ray Bierl	Any Place I Hang My Hat	Greasy String Productions GS102CD	Dobro and pedal steel, 1 cut each
2008	Smith, Mayne	Places I've Been	Self-released MSCD-01	Vocals, rhythm guitars, dobro, pedal steel (20 cuts)

Discography:
Songs Written by Mayne