He was a guitarist and singer-songwriter born in Lawrenceville, Georgia, who worked in the recording studio in the early 1970s with the group he had established called Pollution. He wrote many of their songs and two of the members of this group also had hits in their own right – Dobie Gray and Tata Vega.
He became a member of the group Three Dog Night in 1974 after Joe Schermie and Michael Allsup had left to form S.S. Fools. He left them in 1975 and was replaced by Al Ciner.
Turning to the big screen he appeared in the 1992 movie A Private Matter that starred Aidan Quinn and Sissy Spacek.
Very active in the music industry, he performed with artists such as Dr, John, Billy Joel, Roger McGuinn and Sylvester & The Hot Band to name a few and was the guitarist in John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers from 1977 appearing on many of his album releases from that time onwards. In 1999 he released Down to Earth with his James Quill Smith Band.
He suffered a stroke in 2007 which ended his career and he passed away in Lawrenceville, Georgia in 2018 when he was 74 years old.
Sources:
- https://www.wagesfuneralhome.com/obituaries/James-Smith-322/#!/Obituary
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Dog_Night
- http://www.musicianguide.com/biographies/1608001682/Three-Dog-Night.html
- http://www.soulfulkindamusic.net/dgray.htm
- http://playitagainmax.blogspot.com/2008/09/pollution-i-1971-ii-1972.html
- http://www.amazon.com/Down-Earth-James-Quill-Smith/dp/B0000206HH
- http://www.mnblues.com/cdreview/cd-jqsmith.html
- http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0808597/
- http://www.mbus.com/bands/genadm/The.James.Quill.Smith.Band.htm
- http://www.dinosaurdays.co.za/Groups/pollution.html
- http://www.allmusic.com