Corey Smith

Country singer, songwriter, and guitarist Corey Smith was born in Jefferson, Georgia, just a few miles from Athens, the region's musical center. Growing up with country music, he developed a writing style that steered clear of the genre tropes of trucks and backroad bonfire parties and pointed toward a less idealized but more natural view of what it was to be country in the 21st century. Following high school he attended Gainesville State College, transferred to the University of West Georgia, and eventually ended up at the University of Georgia, where he majored in social studies. He had already written some songs, and started performing them at parties, gaining encouragement from his friends and peers. Following college, Smith taught world history, world geography, and guitar at North Gwinnett High School in Georgia for a time before leaving to pursue music full-time at the age of 28. Smith began to release his own self-produced albums in 2003, beginning with Undertones that same year, and following it with In the Mood (2004), The Good Life (2005), Hard-Headed Fool (2007), Keeping Up with the Joneses (2009), The Broken Record (2011), Live in Chattanooga (2012), and the acoustic Maysville in the Meantime (2014), gaining new fans and admirers with each release. In 2015 he began work on his first album with an outside producer, teaming with Keith Stegall, whose work with the Zac Brown Band comes close to Smith's feel and approach to country music.