He is a guitarist, singer-songwriter and musical
director born George Edward Smith in Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania.In 1959 he was given his first guitar
and then for his 11th birthday, when he had already started his
career as a professional musician, his mother bought him a Fender
Telecaster. When he was a
teenager he travelled to New Haven, Connecticut, to become a member of the
Scratch Band and after several years Dan Hartman approached him to tour the
United States and Europe with him. Once he had finished this tour he
settled in Manhattan where he was taken on to perform in Gilda Live
in 1979.He got friendly with
Gilda Radner and they married in 1980, but split up in 1982.Also in 1979 he landed the lead
guitar for Hall & Oates' band, staying with them for 6 years until 1985.With them he performed on the hits "Kiss
On My List", "Maneater" and "Private Eyes" to name a few and they were also
the house band for Live Aid and Farm Aid.He went on to become the musical
director of the TV show Saturday Night Live in 1985, after Hall
& Oates took a hiatus, and ended up staying with the show's band for 10
years and winning an Emmy Award. From 1988 until 1990 he toured with Bob
Dylan as his lead guitar and in 1992 was his musical director for the Bob
Dylan 30th Anniversary Celebration Concert.In 1995 he and his second wife,
Taylor Barton, started up their own record label, which they called Green
Mirror Music. Throughout the
course of his career he has performed with many of the top artists and
musicians such as Booker T & The MGs, David Bowie, Eric Clapton, Dave
Edmunds, Bryan Ferry, David Gilmour, Al Green, Buddy Guy, George Harrison, Mick
Jagger, Rik Ocasek, Tom Petty, Keith Richards, Tina Turner, Eddie Van Halen
and Peter Wolf. He has
appeared on countless albums that include his own In The World and 50
Watt Fuse and Get A Little with the Saturday Night Live Band, Chronicles
by Bryan Adams, Great Twenty Eight by Chuck Berry, Fruitcakes
by Jimmy Buffett, Crossroads by Tracy Chapman, H2O by Hall
& Oates, Swept Away by Diana Ross, Rain Dogs by Tom Waits.As a songwriter he co-wrote the
theme for Wayne's World with Mike Myers and the song "Six String
Music" with Jimmy Buffett.He
currently performs lead guitar with Moonalice and in 2006 made an
appearance in Broadway's Jersey Girls.
