Drew Smith

After 20 years of winning rugged motorcycle competitions in national events, Drew tapered off to learn to play some musical instruments. He picked up an autoharp over 35 years ago, and is still winning awards as two-time winner (1984 and 2000) of Winfield's International Autoharp Championships! Along the way he's also won the National Autoharp Championship, the Mountain Laurel Autoharp Championship and blue ribbons at the Old Fiddlers Convention at Galax, Virginia. He opens up that Convention each year playing the National Anthem on his autoharp, and conducts a large autoharp workshop there every year. In 2002, Drew was inducted into the Autoharp Hall of Fame.

Drew is a veteran performer and workshop leader, who has developed a unique "thumb lead" style of playing ... which captures melody notes of fast fiddle tunes on his autoharp. He loves to play the chromatic autoharp, because it gives him all the needed notes and chords to be able to play the wide world of music that simply eludes the more limited diatonic harp. As a 23 year band member with Roger Sprung & the Progressive Bluegrassers, he has performed throughout the northeast including at Lincoln Center in NYC, and at the Philadelphia Folk Festival at least 18 times. With other Old-Time band members, Drew is part of a prize winning group called Ben Borscht and the Beats. In the New York/New Jersey area he regularly performs with two groups: Double Play! and Triple Play All-Stars.

You are as likely to hear Drew strike up a Russian tango as a Blues, or a Dixieland tune from the 20's. He started playing Old-Time tunes, and went on to learn numbers from all over the world, teaching many of them at his workshops. He has performed and demonstrated his style and techniques at the Augusta Heritage Center, California Summer Solstice Festival, Cranberry Dulcimer & Autoharp Gathering, Mountain Laurel Autoharp Gathering, Ozark Folk Center, Swannanoa Gathering, Willamette Valley Autoharp Gathering, as well as at Folk Music Club weekends throughout the northeast.

Having won the International Autoharp Championship on his first venture to Walnut Valley in 1984, Drew set to work and created a four volume series featuring up to 9 different winners over the years of the contest, called WINFIELD WINNERS -- AUTOHARP! . all four now on CD's. These albums are reputed to be some of the best of today's pure autoharp recordings! Drew also developed his own "Play-by-Ear" Autoharp Workshop learning system ( 2 one-hour tapes plus a 20 page workbook), to teach beginning autoharp players. And after performing on numerous recordings of others, Drew has produced his first solo CD, called "Now, that's AUTOHARP!" ... a collection of tunes and songs from the Southern Mountains, also including Russian, Turkish, Ladino, Arabic, Blues, Show Tunes, plus tunes from the 20's, and some gospel ... and in 2007 at age 78, Drew still competes (and sometimes wins) in motorcycle competitions!

You can reach Drew at drew-smith-autoharp-emporium@verizon.net

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