He was a busking street musician in Texas, Louisiana, and Oklahoma; Smith played at parties, juke joints, and fish fries.
He also recorded with Bernice Edwards, Black Boy Shine, Magnolia Harris, and Dessa Foster.
Smith's music has been compared to that of Blind Lemon Jefferson,[4][5] and his guitar playing was similar in style to that of other Texas guitarists around in his lifetime.
On more than one occasion, his verses were so full that he had to split the song between both sides of the three-minute limitation imposed by the standard 10" 78-rpm disc.
[2] Several sources have noted that his guitar was often out of tune, even on some of his recordings, and Shaw commented that Smith was not an accomplished guitarist.
In 1931, Smith was arrested after being involved in a fight in a gambling establishment[9] and allegedly killing a man in an argument over a woman.
[5] It has been reported that he died in 1940,[4] but the blues historians Bob Eagle and Eric S. LeBlanc reckoned in their published research that it was "after 1947".