THOM 8 | Spring / Summer 2017

MUSICMAKER
When South Georgia native Jo Smith packed her
bags to take a chance at fame in Nashville, she
didn’t plan to fail.
“It was such a foreign thing to me – the music
business – that I really thought that you just were
discovered,” she says, laughing. “I thought I was
going to be the next big thing.”
And why would she think otherwise? Jo was a star
from an early age. And she was the first to tell
people so.
“I started singing in public when I was three,” she
says. “I sang in church and then my mom put me in
a beauty pageant when I was five. The judges asked
me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I told them,
‘Well, I already am a professional country music
singer – I just don’t get up on stage much.’ This was
all in my five-year-old head. I don’t even know where
I got that! They played along and said, ‘Why don’t
you sing us something?’ So, I sang ‘Have Mercy’ by
the Judds, which is a cheating song.”
The spontaneous performance paid off. “I guess
they liked me because I did end up winning that
pageant,” she says.
The early attention only whet her appetite for
the musical spotlight. After her freshman year at
Auburn University, a Music City snake oil salesman
told her she could get her big break by joining an
all-girl group looking for a singer. She dropped out,
packed her bags and moved to Nashville.
“I promptly got fired – they flaked out on me,” she
explains. “So, I’m up here, living in some random
lady’s attic apartment with no job, no band, no
nothing.”
But, ever the determined Southerner, Jo pulled up
her bootstraps and called on an old friend: an upand-coming
Georgia boy named Luke Bryan.
“Luke was the only person I knew in Nashville,”
she says. “We didn’t grow up together, but Luke’s
granddad and aunts and uncles
all lived [nearby] and he used to
come over and go fishing with my
dad. I had a massive crush on him.
It’s funny now because he’s the
biggest thing in country music, but
at the time it wasn’t that big of a
connection.”
The connection proved to be a
helpful one. Not only did Bryan get
her a job working for his thengirlfriend,
he gave Jo a piece of
advice that would change the course
of her career: Start writing songs.
In a pre-American Idol music
industry, catching the right
attention meant finding your voice
and having it heard. Bryan set Jo up
with his guitarist, Michael Carter,
a prolific writer in his own right.
(Carter went on to write hits for
Thomas Rhett, Cole Swindell and, of
course, Luke Bryan.)
From there, Jo found herself
immersed in a new subset
of the music industry – the
songwriters – who have long been
a strong, supportive community in
Nashville.
“I started writing with the people
who were signed to Luke’s
company,” says Jo, which at the time
was Murrah Music Group. “Those
people had a big influence on my
career. Eventually, I got my own
publishing deal.”
With her songwriting craft honed,
it was time to get herself onstage.
She took to Nashville’s honkytonk
packed Broadway and busked
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