Country music columnist Hazel Smith dies at 83
Coined the phrase, ‘Country Outlaws’
Most of you have never heard the name Hazel Smith, a former country music columnist and TV host. She did write a page of the country music history, so I wanted you to know about this great lady.
Sadly, she died Sunday night (March 18) at her home in Madison, Tennessee. She was 83. But she did so much to promote country music and its musicians, that she deserved my telling you about her life.
Her health had been declining following a cancer operation in 2007. Even during her last years, she often covered musical events seated in a wheelchair pushed by her grandson. Country music was her passion and besides being a columnist, she did a lot of things for that industry.
Hazel Smith was the publicist for the studio known as Hillbilly Central, where so many of the most legendary Outlaw albums were recorded. She’s the one who came out with the term “Outlaw music.”
As a publicist, she’s the one who marketed the music of Tompall Glaser, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Jessi Colter, and others as the “Outlaw Movement.”
You can find in Waylon Jennings autobiography: “Hazel Smith, the great Nashville media specialist, writer, ultimate fan, and publicist for Hillbilly Central, christened it when asked by a disc jockey from WCSE in Ashboro, North Carolina, what to call the renegade sound that was bubbling out of Nineteenth Avenue South. He wanted to base a show around me, Willie, Kris, Tompall, and others that were making a name for themselves going up against the Nashville establishment.”
But she did a lot more than that. She was regarded as one of country music’s most important non-performers. She was a publicist, songwriter, manager, journalist, radio and television host, cookbook author, tastemaker, to artists and others in the music business. Smith was witty and wise, and her knowledge of country music was larger than life.
Hazel Smith was a longtime journalist and columnist in Nashville, contributing the column, “Hillbilly Central” for “Country Music” magazine, and later “Country Weekly” and CMT.
A fact that wasn’t really known about Smith is that she also was a prolific songwriter. Smith had more than 175 songs registered with BMI, including ‘Thank God for Kentucky’ (recorded by Bill Monroe); ‘Love Ain’t the Question,’ ‘Love Ain’t the Answer’ (Dr. Hook); ‘Lord, It Sure Rains Hard in Tennessee’; ‘When Love Goes’; ‘He Loved You Out of My Heart’; and ‘I Put the Devil on My Angel’.
Many of her songs went on to be recorded by Bill Monroe, Tammy Wynette, Brenda Lee, Dr. Hook, and many others. All of this and more is what led Smith to get awarded the Country Music Association’s Media Achievement Award in 1999.
Hazel Smith was born May 31, 1934 in Caswell County in N.C. She was married early and had two sons, but the marriage didn’t last. Smith found comfort in country music after her divorce.
It was during this time that she met Bill Monroe at a bluegrass festival, and a relationship started. However, Bill Monroe proved to not being a faithful companion to Smith. It is also because of that relationship that she moved to Nashville in 1970. There, she got a first job as the publicist for Kinky Friedman.
She also inspired a song: Monroe wrote his ‘Walk Softly on This Heart of Mine,’ a 1989 hit for the Kentucky Headhunters, for her. She told Monroe during an argument, to be careful because he was walking on her heart, which gave the idea for a song to Monroe.
From there she got involved into what would become the Outlaw movement, playing an important part in the careers of over a dozen different artists. Smith worked as a publicist for Nashville outliers Kinky Friedman and the Texas Jewboys, Tompall Glaser, and Jennings and Nelson in the early seventies.
Her two sons Billy and Terry Smith would go on to have careers as bluegrass musicians and songwriters as well.
Later Hazel Smith would also receive credit for discovering and introducing Garth Brooks and Gillian Welch to the nation. She also had a passion for food and cooking, publishing the book ‘Hazel’s Hot Dish: Cookin’ with Country Stars,’ with appearances by Trisha Yearwood and Alan Jackson among others.
Smith would go on to be a personal assistant for Grand Ole Opry stars Ricky Skaggs and his wife, Sharon, then form a management company, all the while writing for “Country Music” magazine.
Hazel Smith is survived by sons Billy and Terry and grandchildren Adam, Jeremy, Mattie, Tyler, Tara, and Trevor. The family has made it known she will be buried in North Carolina.
She did a lot for the promotion of country music and for that, we have to salute her work.