[4][5][6] Smith began his music career performing at the Remember Me Cafe in San Francisco at the age of 15, but he was not financially successful at first.

[2] Smith permanently parted ways with Tubb and the Texas Troubadours in 1969 and he released his first solo album, Drinking Champagne, in 1969.

[8] He began recording songs written by some of the biggest names in the industry; for instance, in March 1973, his rendition of Bill Anderson's "The Lord Knows I'm Drinking" became his first number-one country hit.

Smith continued to have success with MCA Records into the late 1970s including the Top 20 singles "Between Lust And Watching TV" (1974), "She Talked A Lot About Texas" (1975), "I Just Came Home To Count The Memories" (1977), and "Come See About Me" (1977).

[2] In 1977, Smith joined entrepreneur Larry Schmittou and other country music stars, such as Conway Twitty, Jerry Reed, Larry Gatlin, and Richard Sterban, as investors in the Nashville Sounds, a minor league baseball team of the Double-A Southern League that began play in 1978.