Four artists charted on Billboard with the Smith and Lewis song "Reconsider Me": Johnny Adams (1969), Ray Pillow (1969), John Wesly Ryles (1971) and Narvel Felts (1975).
Smith had two older sisters, Kathleen and Birdie Lee [15] and from an early age, all three were encouraged to play music.
[17] Smith was greatly inspired by Les Paul, both by his guitar playing and his innovations with multi-track studio recording.
[18] Smith was a fan and later performed[5] on the Louisiana Hayride, a live radio show recorded from the city auditorium in Shreveport and broadcast on station KWKH.
[19] In 1955, when Smith was 29, she acquired the building located at 2439 Lakeshore Drive in Shreveport[20][3] and turned it into Royal Audio Recording studio.
Her cousin, Alton Warwick, worked on the carpentry and attached egg crates to the walls as a soundproofing measure.
Smith discovered RCA made quality custom pressings for Indie labels and began to use their services.
[16] Smith scoured most of Louisiana and east Texas, crossing racial and genre boundaries in her search for talented artists.
[4] Ram recording artists included Linda Brannon, Margaret Lewis, Roy "Boogie Boy" Perkins, The Lonesome Drifter, Bobby Page and the Riff Raffs, Endom Spires, June Bug Bailey, Sonny ("Golden Boy") Williamson II, Carol Williams, Larry Bamburg, James Heubert Wilson, Charlotte Ray Hunter, and many others.
The Lonesome Drifter (Thomas Johnson) and his 1958 single "Eager Boy"/ "Tear Drop Valley" (K-Records #5812)[31] is considered one of the more significant recordings from this label.
[32] As a woman in almost completely male industry, Smith often found it difficult to find distribution and promotion services.
[20][16] In 1960, Smith opened a new studio on Greenwood Drive, which included a built-in echo unit and separate vocal booths.
[20][21][33] In 1994, London-based Ace Records, a British reissue label which specializes in American Roots music, released a 6-CD box set which included many previously unreleased songs from the Ram Catalog.
[6] NPR's Alex Chadwick ran a series of interviews about the Ram Records legacy during September and October of 1994.
They joined the Country Music Association and signed a contract with record producer Shelby Singleton's SSS International Corporation.
In 1971, "Reconsider Me" was the title track of John Wesly Ryles' Plantation Records album, hitting #39 on the Country Charts.
Smith was the recipient of six BMI Awards for her songs "The Girl Most Likely", "Mountain of Love", "Oh Singer", "Reconsider Me", There Never Was a Time" and "The Wedding Cake".