Darden Smith

Founded in 2012 by Smith and Mary Judd, SongwritingWith:Soldiers organizes weekend retreats during which professional songwriters are paired with veterans and active duty service members who share stories about their experiences of combat and the return home. Working collaboratively, the musicians and soldiers turn those stories into songs. SongwritingWith:Soldiers has held 40+ retreats at locations including Texas, New York, Virginia, Colorado, Arizona, Tennessee, and California Participants are registered with the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) as co-writers of their songs.

Smith founded The Be An Artist Program in 2003. The program bring arts and creativity into educational settings, including songwriting with students. The Be An Artist Program has reached more than 15,000 students in the United States and in Western Europe. Smith has used collaborative songwriting in work with homeless young adults at Covenant House in New Jersey; residents of Sefhare, Botswana suffering from HIV/AIDS, and Israeli and Palestinian groups.

Smith left Columbia in 1995 and spent several years without an agent or label. He returned to recording through independent labels, which led to a trio of albums for Dualtone Records (Sunflower, 2002; Circo, 2004; Field of Crows, 2005) to Marathon (2010), a 15-track cycle of songs named for a remote town in West Texas, described by one reviewer as "a peak in [Smith's] 25-year songwriting career" His 2017 album Everything was co-produced by Smith and Stewart Lerman and released on Compass Records. The Habit of Noticing:Using Creativity to Make a Life (and a Living) (2018) was published by Irie Books. His installation, "What I See When I See You" is in the permanent collection of Facebook. Smith continues to tour, performing regularly across America and the UK.

After releasing Native Soil in 1986, Darden Smith was signed by Dick James Music to a publishing deal. In 1987, Epic Records signed Smith at the inaugural South by Southwest Festival and released Darden Smith (1988), which produced two country chart hit singles, “Little Maggie” and “Day After Tomorrow.” Later that year, Nigel Grainge, the head of Ensign Records, introduced Smith to the British songwriter Boo Hewerdine. Four days later, they had eight songs and a record deal with Ensign/Chrysalis that resulted in Evidence (1989). After Smith's label deal with Epic was transferred to the pop division of Columbia Records, he released Trouble No More (1990), best known for “Midnight Train” and “Frankie & Sue," and Little Victories (1993) which included the Top 10 pop hit single, "Loving Arms".

Smith's early interest in music was sparked by singing in the local church choir, the "seat-rattling sound" of the church's pipe organ, and accompanying his parents to country-western dances. By the third grade, he had a guitar and a teacher who taught him how to play every song on Neil Young's Harvest and After the Gold Rush. Smith began writing his own songs at age ten. In 1976, after his family moved to Humble, Texas, in the Houston suburbs, Smith spent his teen years listening to Guy Clark, Townes van Zandt, John Prine, and Bob Dylan. His musical influences expanded when he moved to Austin to attend The University of Texas and was exposed to blues and reggae, as well as musicians coming out of the United Kingdom such as Nick Lowe, Elvis Costello, and The Pretenders. Smith quickly got involved with Austin's burgeoning music scene, playing in small Austin venues like the Alamo Lounge, Taco Flats, and Waterloo Ice House. He joined a bluegrass band called The Ramblers. By the time Smith graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in American Studies (1985), he was a regular on the local and Texas music scenes. He has one son and one daughter.

Darden Smith (born March 11, 1962, in Brenham, Texas) is an Austin-based singer-songwriter known for his lyrics and for weaving folk and Americana influences with rock, pop, and the musical roots of his home state. His debut album, "Native Soil," was released in 1986. His fourteenth album, Love Calling, came out August 27, 2013. Over the past decade, Smith has developed two programs, The Be An Artist Program (2003) and SongwritingWith (2011). Both use collaborative songwriting to work with groups ranging from children in the classroom to soldiers returning home from combat. Smith established SongwritingWith:Soldiers as a separate non-profit organization in 2012.