Dick Smith interview, 2022-08-04T00:00:00+00:00
Scope and Contents
D.C. Oral History Collaborative (DCOHC) is a citywide initiative to train community members in oral history skills, fund new and ongoing oral history projects, connect volunteers with oral history projects, and publicize existing oral history collections. DCOHC is a project of DC Public Library, HumanitiesDC, and the Historical Society of Washington, D.C. This collection contains oral history interviews, transcripts, and indexes produced by DCOHC grantees.
Dates
- Creation: 2022-08-04T00:00:00+00:00
Biographical / Historical
Richard 'Dick' Smith is a singer and long-time organizer in the D.C. jazz community. He was born in 1944 in Hamilton, Ohio, and began singing in local vocal, doo-wop, and gospel groups there. He attended Northwestern University on a football scholarship before being drafted by the Kansas City Chiefs in 1966 and playing for the Washington Redskins as a defensive linebacker in 1967. He became active in the jazz community shortly after arriving to D.C. After joining the board of Tony Taylor’s Lettumplay, he became active in organizing musicians and finding places for the aging masters of the D.C. jazz community to play while also pursuing his own work as a singer, prison educator, and activist (including recording the 1983 album Initial Thrust with members of the band Zapp). He co-founded the Westminster Presbyterian Church’s 'Jazz Night in D.C.' series in the late 1990s with Reverend Brian Hamilton and serves as the booker and curator to this day.
Extent
From the Collection: 1.13 Terabytes
Language of Materials
English
Abstract
The video of our interview with Richard 'Dick' Smith – jazz vocalist, activist, and co-founder of the 'Jazz Night' series at Westminster Presbyterian Church. Smith talks about growing up in Hamilton, Ohio, and his early ideas of community being formed from the neighborhoods he lived in, as well as formative musical experiences singing in local groups. He talks about his success as a football player for Northwestern University and the Washington Redskins before he got deeply involved in the D.C. jazz community, working with and alongside some of its greatest players to spread the music over the city. He talks about working with Tony Taylor’s Lettumplay in that regard and doing jazz vesper services and how both led him to Reverend Brian Hamilton and the Westminster Presbyterian Church. He speaks about the importance of the church’s jazz series for musicians, for the true 'contributors' to the music around the city, and what he hopes people gain from the series and jazz.
Topical
Repository Details
Part of the The People's Archive, Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Library Repository