Lenny Smith

After 15 years--can it possibly have been that long?--Billy Price Band guitarist Lenny Smith has decided to leave the band. Increasingly during the past couple of years, Lenny wasn't enjoying the traveling we do throughout the year, and he's decided that he wants to be free to pursue some exciting ideas he has to develop in different directions as a musician. I respect his decision, and there are certainly no hard feelings from me or from Lenny. When we talked about it, we agreed that we'd had a great run working together and seeing the band develop as it has, and I wish Lenny nothing but the best, in music and in life.

In the early days of the BP Band, we were sharing Donny Garvin on guitar with Pure Gold, an arrangement that didn't always work out so well for us. It was around then that a friend of mine told me about this great blues guitar player who had grown up in Muscle Shoals, Alabama and, for some reason, wound up in Pittsburgh, and he urged me to check him out. Lenny's Muscle Shoals pedigree certainly got my attention, and it wasn't long before I contacted him and invited him to play a gig with us. Not long into that first gig, I knew that I had to have Lenny play guitar in my band. Lenny was and is an extraordinary rhythm guitarist, and his solos wrecked the house, every time.

Although I'll miss playing with him, I'm excited to watch how Lenny progresses with music, and I know that we'll remain good friends.



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