Whispering Jack Smith

"Whispering" Jack Smith was born John Schmidt. He died of a heart attack at the age of 51 and is buried next to his mother Anna Schmidt at St. Raymond's Cemetery in the Bronx, NYC. His grave is unmarked.

He had a distinctive style which was a combination of singing and talking in a very "intimate" way using the mic very effectively as opposed to "belting" the song out.

His "whispering" style of singing was a result of a WWI injury from poison gas that kept him from singing at full volume. He was a pianist at a
radio station when he got his singing break substituting for a singer who failed to show up.

He made the "whispering" style popular, and there were a number of imitators. Smith took to the relatively newly invented microphone, and it was singers like "Whispering" Jack Smith and the early "crooners" who developed the use of this "modern" technology. At first Smith was exclusively on the radio, but beginning in 1925, he began making records. He also started performing on stage on the vaudeville circuit.

In 1927, Jack Smith was touring England, performing with the Blue Skies Theater Company singing tunes such as "Manhattan" by Rogers and Hart and songs by Gershwin,when he was suddenly replaced by a new all girl singing trio, the Hamilton Sisters & Fordyce. Smith returned to New York and eventually went to work for NBC Radio.

Smith's "disarmingly intimate, polite, and velvety smooth delivery helped distinguished him from everyone else."

One reviewer in describing his "whispering" style said that "His art was the epitome of under statement."Another indicated, "With a pleasing stage presence, and a genial manner, Whispering Jack Smith establishes contact with his audience just as soon as he sits at his grand piano, and he wins more applause with every song."

His performances
can be found on
a number of
compilations
of recordings
from the 1920s
and 1930s.

In 1995
Pavilion
Records
released a
retrospective
CD entitled
Whispering
Jack
Smith.

In 2000, ASV released Me and My Shadow -
a compilation of his later songs, taking
its title from his 1927 hit song
"Me and My Shadow".



Listen to a few
rare tracks from my
Whispering Jack Smith
Radio Transcription

Legend has it that politely understated baritone Whispering Jack Smith (not to be confused with actor and vibrant tenor pop vocalist Jack Smith, born in 1918) developed his unique and intimate singing style as a result of bronchial injuries sustained during a gas attack on the battlefield in France during World War I. While he seems to have indeed survived such a harrowing experience, it is also known that Smith was capable of projecting his voice every bit as powerfully as any of his stage-performing peers. It was the introduction of the microphone in 1925 that enabled Smith to create the marvelous soft-spoken persona so radically different from his many loud-mouthed vaudeville contemporaries.

Beginning in 1925 Smith generated a steady stream of Victor and HMV recordings in the U.S. and in London, where he performed periodically in stage revues. When he wasn't accompanying himself at the piano, Smith relied upon someone else to tickle the keys or strum a guitar. His 1926 recording of "When the Red, Red Robin Comes Bob, Bob, Bobbin' Along" featured special guest whistler Carson Robison. Smith also sang with various society dance orchestras. Smith's biggest hits were "Gimme a Little Kiss, Will Ya, Huh?" and "Me and My Shadow." He made his London debut in the Midnight Follies at the Hotel Metropole in 1926 and appeared in Blue Skies at the Vaudeville theater in New York the following year. Smith was back in England for the opening of Will-o'-the-Whispers at the Shaftesbury Theatre on April 4, 1928, and performed in front of enthusiastically receptive audiences in Berlin during August of that year.

In 1930 Smith went to Hollywood, where he appeared in one of the first talking motion pictures, Cheer Up and Smile, during which he sang "You May Not Like It -- But It's a Great Idea." Whispering Jack Smith continued to perform throughout the 1930s, although his popularity gradually waned as styles changed. He staged a modest comeback in 1940 and made a handful of sentimental recordings, but quickly lapsed back into a rather early retirement. Out of place in an increasingly rude and clamorous world, he passed away in New York during May of 1951.