Jim Smoak Banjo Music Collection

Growing up in low country South Carolina in the 1930s and 1940s, Jim Smoak immersed himself in the music of his family and of the live radio broadcasts to which they listened.  Smoak especially admired the innovative banjo playing of Snuffy Jenkins, whom he heard daily on Columbia’s WIS Station.  Jenkins would become a family friend and mentor, inspiring Smoak to pursue work as a banjo player.  Smoak would become one of the first generation of banjo players to bring three-finger style to national audiences.  Although a “hidden figure” of American roots music, Smoak has quietly contributed to many of the key contexts of country, folk, and bluegrass music.