Jackson Free Press

Rockabilly Mac Allen Smith's musical education began in the 1940s when he was a small boy visiting his grandfather's home outside Carrollton. His uncles were skilled musicians and would play for dances held at the house. Smith remembers watching them "just set up in the living room and play for the dancers."

While in high school during the mid 1950s, he heard Elvis Presley's first records played on the radio. Smith took immediately to Presley's unique sound. "It was so different," Smith says of Elvis music. "I hadn't heard anything like it."

Hearing this new sound encouraged Smith and his teenaged friends to try playing music themselves. They put together a Future Farmers of America band at their high school with Smith as the lead singer and entered a statewide "hillbilly band" competition sponsored by the FFA. "They wouldn't let me do any Elvis," Smith recalls.

Their band won the competition two years in a row, fueling Smith's interest in performing. He put together a band after graduating from high school and began playing clubs around Greenwood. In 1959, he got a chance to follow in his idol's footsteps with an audition at Sun Records in Memphis.

Elvis recorded his first records at Sun, and the studio didn't let Smith forget it.

"They made sure to tell me, 'I guess you know you're standing where Elvis stood when he recorded (his first hit) 'That's All Right Mama',Ҕ he recalls.

Smith recorded three songs during his visit. "It was amazing," he says. "When they played (the songs) back, I couldn't believe it."

Sun never released the songs, but Smith released records on a number of small labels, including Vee Eight, during the 1960s and '70s He also became a steady presence at clubs throughout the Delta. Mack Allen Smith and The Flames, drew large crowds with a mix of popular dance songs, country hits and a regular dose of rockabilly.

The gigs were steady, but the nights on the bandstand were long. Their scheduled quitting time was 1 a.m., but Smith remembers many nights not leaving the club until 5 a.m.

When his son began his senior year of high school football in 1984, Smith stopped performing to attend the games. The break from music continued after his children were grown. "I stayed quit for 18 years," he says.

In 2002, a local community center asked Smith to sing a few songs. Smith, now 70, performs a mix of rockabilly and country hits with his reconstituted group at community centers shows throughout Mississippi's central hill country.

This past spring, Big Legal Mess Records, a subsidiary of Fat Possum Records in Oxford, released a collection of Smith's recordings from the 1960s. "Mack Allen Smith, The Early Years 1962-1967" features Smith's earliest singles, including the bluesy original "Hobo Man" and a sped-up version of "Only Make Believe," a song first made popular by fellow Deltan Conway Twitty.

The singer is working on some additional CD releases, but rockabilly fans can best experience Smith's music live. "We don't have to play all night like we used to," Smith says.

For Smith's CD, visit Big Legal Mess Records' Web site at http://www.biglegalmessrecords.com.