Make Music Knoxville

Smiley and the Lovedawg

Chris Durman and Steve White (aka Smiley and the Lovedawg) have been friends for over forty-five years, and they have been playing music together for almost as long. Chris writes many of the songs, sings, and plays guitar; Steve sings harmony and plays the mandolin, slide-mandolin, guitar, and fiddle. While he has a natural rapport with any string instrument, Steve stands out from the crowd when playing the mandolin. They play a somewhat eclectic mix of acoustic folk, rock, bluegrass, blues, rags, and older country interspersed with as many of their own songs as the audiences will bear at the bars, weddings, festivals, coffeehouses, and house parties where they play. They suspect that they probably sound like the East Tennessee valley where they're from with melodies, rhythms, and images from Appalachia mixed with the sensibilities and concerns of factory towns, polluted and otherwise affected by a variety of outside influences.