Dennis and Nellie Faye Smith


       When Dennis Smith was two years of age, his maternal grandfather, Minor Smith, would stand him on a cane-bottom chair in front of his Sunday School class at Smith Grove Baptist Church and have him to sing. 
        “I would cry, scared to death,” he told this writer, in an interview with The Christian View. “But there was something inside of me, I liked to sing. Finally, I’d get over my cry, and I’d sing. 
        “My Grandpa had much to do with instilling in me a love for singing. He was active in the Pickens County Singers Convention. They had a common love to sing. They would sing on WELP radio every Sunday, and they would travel around and have singing conventions. I went on many a trip with my Grandpa way down in the middle of Georgia, among the Georgia pines. We would ride on a dirt road for 10 miles and come upon a big building, an ‘old tabernacle’, in the middle of nowhere. Cars would be all around it, and 200 or 300 people would be ‘singing their heads off.’ Different counties in Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Kentucky, and Tennessee would have their local conventions, and there was nothing they enjoyed better than getting together and singing that Gospel music with one another.” 
        Minor and Ozella Smith and Jim and Frankie Bernice Smith were no relation, but they shared a grandson. “My mother was a Smith and married a Smith, so I’m a double-barrel Smith,” he said. 
        His parents, J.D. and Edith Smith, have been the greatest influences in his life. “I was raised in a Christian home and was very fortunate to have godly parents who always set the example and kept the standard high,” he said. “They have been my cornerstone. They trained me in the straight and narrow when I was a little fellow, and I never wavered far from their principles. “My father pastored the Bible Methodist Church in Easley when I was a little boy,” he said. “It was called the Pilgrim Church then. Like every other preacher’s kid, when I was young, I had that ‘drug’ problem. Every time the doors were open, I was ‘drug’ to church. I resented it, and didn’t understand, because I saw my friends going to the lake on Sunday or going to ballgames or traveling, and I wanted to be able to go with my friends. But they never wavered to discipline me to be in church, and, now, I appreciate it. So many of my friends from that era are not involved in church in any way. They’re doing various and sundry things in their life, and Christ is nowhere in the mix. That’s why I appreciate now what my Mom and Dad did.” 
        Smith attended Easley High School through the tenth grade, and then attended Southern Pilgrim Academy and College, a preparatory school in Kernersville, North Carolina that allowed him to complete a year of college courses by the time he graduated from high school in 1966. 
        He met his wife, Nellie Faye, when they were students at the academy. They married in January, 1967.    
        Smith attended college on a music scholarship, but double majored in music and history. To help pay for his tuition, he sang with the school quartet, which traveled to area churches to raise funds for the school.    
        “In the early days, when we had all 78 records with one song on one side, I used to lie in front of the old record player and listen to the Gospel quartets,” he said. “That’s where I learned to sing parts, by listening to the quartets, listening to the base and the baritone and the lead and the tenor. I would try to sing along with each part, so I could mentally hear and feel those parts. 
        “I remember the Statesmen, the Blackwood Brothers, the Rangers, the Prophets, the Sons of Song, and the Sunshine Boys. I heard the Sons of the Pioneers in person as a little boy. Those were the greats of yesteryear. They gave me the ear for music. My roots are in Gospel music. I’ve always been around it. I’ve always loved to sing it.” 
        After he graduated from college in 1969, he and Nellie moved back to Easley, where he began work as a technician for Southern Bell. He was drafted into the Army in April, 1970, and was stationed with the 101st Airborne Division at Fort Campbell, Kentucky until October, 1971. 
        “When I came back to Easley, my first opportunity with singing was with a group called Southern Joy, based out of Greenville,” he said. “A lady sang with us, so we were a mixed group. I was with them for about three years. “Danny Crawford, who is a talented person in the area, had a group called The Representatives. We sang for about four years and traveled all over the eastern United States. 
        “Then, I took the Minister of Music position at Glenwood Wesleyan Church and served there until 1988.
        “In 1984, I was invited by a dear friend of mine, David Greene, who is the son of Dr. Oliver Greene, to serve as the national soloist for The Gospel Hour, a syndicated radio program that airs in 26 countries. We recorded more than 300 songs in the studio to be used in the library for the Gospel Hour. That was a great honor, and I’ve enjoyed representing the Gospel Hour. From time to time, David will ask me to go to a church as an emissary for the Gospel Hour. I’ve been able to sing with Don Norman at Jerry Falwell’s church in Lynchburg, Virginia. That was a great honor. 
        “In 1985, Larry Seay, Robbie Mullinax, Jack Blackstone, and I formed a group called Four of a Kind. From 1986 to 1997, we traveled and opened for national country music artists. We also got into NASCAR and did shows at the Darlington 500, the Bristol Speedway, and the Charlotte Motor Speedway. We sang ‘do-wop’ music, which was true oldies music, from the 1950’s and early 1960’s. We had skits and humor and good, clean, family-oriented fun. Our first joy was Gospel, and we always included two or three Gospel songs.” 
        During the time that Smith traveled with Four of a Kind, he and his family attended Rock Springs Baptist Church, off and on. “We were seldom in town on the weekends,” he said. “With Four of a Kind, one year we did 130 programs. A lot of those were in other states. We flew or rode buses to do whatever it took to get there and do the programs and get back. When we were out of town and had a Saturday night program, we would stay over and go to a local church on Sunday and then head home. Sometimes, we wouldn’t get home until 4:00 or 5:00 on Monday morning, and I would take a shower, eat breakfast, and go straight to work at Bell South without any sleep, except for when we had dozed on the bus. That’s a rough life.” 
        After Four of a Kind, Dennis and Nellie and their three daughters, Vangie, Sondra, and Christie, became members at Rock Springs. 
        “I’ve slowed down a lot with my traveling,” said Smith. “I’ll do about 33 programs this year for churches and civic groups and conventions.”
        The first Friday evening of each month, he serves as Master of Ceremonies at Classic Events, in Travelers Rest, which offers a buffet supper and Gospel singing. “I do the comedy and a little bit of singing, and I introduce the groups,” he said. “It’s always a fun time.” 
        He sings with a quartet at his church and also sings in a quartet that rotates with fellow Gideons.
        The Gideons International relies solely on donations for its ministry of placing copies of the Bible in hotel rooms, hospitals, and nursing homes, sending Bibles to members of the military, and giving Bibles to college students. 
        “It’s patterned after the great Old Testament patriarch Gideon,” said Smith. “Gideon’s army was not but 300 men, but they were so effective. There are thousands of Gideons around the world. The Gideons Ladies Auxiliary plays an important role in the Gideons. They do mainly the hospitals and nursing home Bible distributions. 
        “Our annual membership dues pay for the administration. One hundred percent of every dollar that is given to the Gideons in the name of the Bible, to spread scripture, goes to distribution.” Smith’s own favorite verse of scripture is Philippians 4:13: I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.    
        “There is something unique about the Bible that cannot be said about any other book in the world, and that is that it is unctionized, energized, and brought alive by the power of the Holy Spirit,” he said. “You do not have to do anything but place God’s Word where human eyes will see it, and there will be a reaction. God speaks to us through His Word. Amazingly, He speaks to the sinner through His Word—not in the same way that He speaks to a Christian, but the sinner is convicted by the power of the Holy Spirit through those words of the Bible. And so it’s just a matter of getting the Word out there. God says, ‘My word shall not return unto me void.’ So we stand on that promise.
        “Some might think, ‘Why in the world would you try to give it to a bunch of college kids? They’re busy studying their own thing.’ But it’s amazing. When they open that Book, in one way or another, God begins to work in their life. And then the decision is theirs. They have seen it, heard it, and read it. Now, it’s up to them. So they cannot stand at the Judgment and say, ‘I was never told,’ or ‘I never knew about this.’ There is something about that Word, even before they open it, that compels them to look in its pages. It is a supernatural miracle. That’s what makes the Gideons so unique and so special.” 
        Smith remembers when he gave his own heart and life to the Lord, as a 14-year-old boy. “You know how a preacher’s kid is,” he said. “You make assumptions, when you’re young, that you’re going to be able to ride in on mama and daddy’s coattail. I became a Christian, having a true experience of my own, which I knew was from the Lord, when I was 14 years old. That’s when I made the decision, and my life started to take a turn.” 
        Two years later, he was determined to prepare his life for Christian ministry. “When I was in school, a lot of people told me, ‘Dennis, you need to be a preacher.’ That’s something you had better be called for. I felt that I was called into Christian service, but I never felt the call to the preaching ministry. The music ministry has always been what I felt was my calling. The Lord has allowed me many opportunities in Christian ministry. I have probably sung in more than 70 different denominations. I’ve sung in some of the weirdest places you’ve ever seen, and I’ve sung in some of the biggest, nicest places you’ve ever seen. 
        “I’ve sung in churches that were so ‘cold and dry’ that ‘icicles were hanging from the chandeliers’. And I’ve sung in churches that were so absolutely wild that ‘people were swinging from the chandeliers’. It’s amazing to me, the different styles and personalities of different churches and how, even in the Baptist churches, one church can be so absolutely different from another. I always tell my audiences, ‘There’s one thing about the Baptists. They’ll treat you so many ways, you’re bound to like one of them.’
        “Some of the experiences I’ve had, I wouldn’t take anything for,” he added.
He recalled traveling to another state in the winter of 1968 when he sang with his college’s quartet. “We were going to a little old church back in the hills,” he said. “I’m talking about back in the hills. This was where they drove spigots in the ground to make people think they had running water. 
        “We were in a big station wagon. We had our clothes and luggage with us, because, after we sang that morning, we were going to travel back to the school in Kernersville, North Carolina. It came the most awful snowstorm you’ve ever seen. We thought that surely they wouldn’t have church that morning. So, we called, and the pastor said, ‘Oh, yes. The snow doesn’t bother them. They’ll come out in the hills.’ 
        “So, we were traveling to the church, and we came around a curve going around a hill, and the station wagon started sliding. There was nothing we could do. We came to a little bridge, and it had curbing on the side. That front wheel hit that curbing. It all seemed like it was going in slow motion. The car went over that bridge. The nose of the car was down in the creek, which was about four feet deep and was almost a river. There we were, standing on the front dash of the car, because it was in a vertical position. We were standing on the dash, looking in the windshield at the water. And the back wheels were propped up on the bridge. I’ll never forget that, for as long as I live, trying to climb out the back window of that station wagon, climb up over the seats to get to the back window to climb out to get back on that bridge. 
        “We didn’t have cell phones then. We walked to a little house, and a man came to the door and called the church and a wrecker. By the time we got to the church, it was about 11:45. I was so surprised. They had advertised this singing, and the little church, which normally didn’t have 35 to 40 people, had about 120 people crammed to the wall, standing. It was snowing like everything outside. Those people were there because they wanted to hear us sing. I was so impressed. We barely could make our way through the crowd to get to the front, just to sing to those people. They were determined. They knew that, if they didn’t get us then, we probably wouldn’t make it back up there. I’ll never forget that experience.” 
        When asked why he sings Gospel music, Smith replied, “It’s in my heart. 
        “There have been times that I have stood up to sing Gospel music, and I was sick on my stomach or I had the flu or my throat was killing me or I had a splitting headache. But I am not going to let my ministry suffer because of the way that I feel. I always ask God to help me, and, amazingly, He always does. God helps those who have a sincere desire for ministry. He’ll give you the strength when the strength is needed and enable you to effectively minister to people. To me, that is what ministry is all about. 
        “For some reason, I’m a little bit more extroverted when I sing,” he added. “I think part of that is the influence of watching people who I think are the best of the best. They not only sing a song, they paint a song. They tell the story through their face and through their body language. They don’t stand and sing a Christian song like a stoic, with no expression, with a ‘cement’ face. 
        A hymn talks about the attributes of God and glorifies God. Gospel music is man’s response to God and His plan of salvation. A Gospel song is a testimony. So, when people are telling their story and are excited about it, then they should notify their face and notify their body language and not be afraid to show it to people, so that others say, ‘I want that. I want that salvation. If that guy can sing and be that happy and can tell the story that convincingly, I want part of that.’ We don’t call that entertainment. In the Christian church, we call it effective ministry. 
        “And that’s why I like our preacher. When he gets in the pulpit, he turns into a bold deliverer of God’s message, and he does it in an excited, animated way that gets your attention. He’s not going to let things get dry or formal or stuffy. If he senses that is happening, he’s going to do something to break it up. He has a unique God-given gift to be able to do that and yet maintain a sense of order and relevance and reverence in the service at the same time. You get spiritually fed every Sunday. 
        “Another thing I like about our Pastor is that he’s constantly throwing out the net. There is not a Sunday that goes by that he is not a fisher of men. His message always comes around to an evangelical appeal for sinners to come to Christ and salvation. But it’s our job, as members, to bring in the fish. The Gospel net is cast, and then we blanket it all with prayer, so that God prepares the hearts of those souls. And you can always count on one thing—David Gallamore will be casting the net.
        “The way we’re Gospel music oriented, the way the message is delivered, and the way the invitation is conducted, Rock Springs brings back memories to me and reminds me of the time when I was a little boy going to church. We went to Paris Mountain Holiness Baptist Church in Greenville until I was about seven years old, when we went to Michigan for my dad to go to Bible school. We had camp meeting every year. Harold Sitler, who was the Pastor at Tabernacle Baptist Church, would come. Ralph Sexton would come down from Asheville. For years and years, he had a program on WLOS called ‘Send the Light’. His son now pastors his church and still carries on that broadcast. I remember those days, and our church is very similar.” 
        Among his favorite Gospel singers, Smith names Jake Hess. “He was one of the biggest influences in my life, and I was privileged to sing with him one time,” he said. “He was the epitome of the lead singer. He sang lead for years with The Statesmen Quartet, and then he formed the group The Imperials. 
        “Glenn Payne, who sang with The Cathedrals Quartet, was a great singer. 
        “Among the bass singers, I think George Younce will never be touched. 
        “I’ve always liked J.D. Sumner, who sang first of all with The Blackwood Brothers and then had his own group, The Stamps Quartet. 
        “Another of the great bass singers was Big Chief Weatherington. He sang with Doy Ott and Jake Hess and Rosie Rozell. They probably made up the best Statesmen Quartet there ever was. 
        “I always liked Vestal Goodman and Eva Mae LeFevre and Mom and Pop Speer and the Speer family. And the Sego Brothers and Naomi—I never will forget ‘Miss Naomi’. She was good. 
        “There have been some great female singers through the years. And now I like Kim Hopper. That gal can flat out sing. I don’t keep up as much with the new groups as I used to with the old groups, though there are some good ones out there. 
        “I like the old songs,” he said, “songs like “Child of the King” and “No One Ever Cared for me like Jesus” and songs like, ‘He paid a debt he did not owe, I owed a debt I could not pay. I needed someone to wash my sins away. Now, I sing a brand new song, Amazing Grace, for Jesus paid a debt that I could never pay.’ Songs like that grab the crux of what salvation is all about. 
        “One of my favorites is a song written several years ago that says, ‘I traveled down a lonely road, and no one seemed to care. The burden on my weary back had bowed me to despair. I oft’ complained to Jesus how folks were treating me. But then, I heard him say, so tenderly, ‘My feet were oh so weary upon the Calvary Road. The cross became so heavy, I fell beneath the load. So, be faithful, weary pilgrim. The morning I can see. Just lift your cross and follow close to me.’ 
        “There was an old song I love called “Since He Rent the Veil Into.” One of the greatest privileges we have as Christians is being able to go boldly before the throne and not have to go through a priest or intermediary as they did in the Old Testament. This song talks about when the veil was rent into, in the temple at the time Jesus said, ‘It is finished.’ When that great earthquake came, and the lightning came, and the wind blew, at that moment in the temple, the veil was rent from top to bottom. That old veil that had been woven was about the thickness of a man’s body. It was a fancy tapestry that separated the Holy of Holies from the outer court at the temple. If it had been rent from rot, the weight of it would have caused it to separate at the bottom. But it was a mighty hand of God that rent it from top to bottom, to prove that now we can enter boldly in the Holy of Holies. The song says, ‘Once our blessed Christ of Beauty was veiled off from human view. But through suffering, death, and sorrow, He has rent the veil into. He became the sacrifice on that altar, that Holy of Holies altar.’ And the chorus says, ‘Lo, behold the man of sorrow, Lo, behold Him in plain view. Lo, He is the mighty conqueror since He rent the veil into.’ He became the conqueror. I love that song.” 
        Smith has written a song, “When King Jesus Comes to Earth to Live Again,” which reached number five on the Gospel charts and has been sung by several quartets.
        “One of the things about Gospel music, especially Southern Gospel music, is the way songs talk about man’s commitment to Christ, and being able to share that, and give the invitation, like a minister would, and to be able to see people come to Christ,” he said. 
        “From time to time, we’ll get a letter from someone saying, ‘Your singing has been such a blessing to me.’ That is something you totally never expect. Somebody takes the time to write a letter saying, ‘It was your singing that influenced me to give my heart to the Lord.’ That is priceless. 
        “Or folks at church will say, ‘Dennis, it’s a joy to hear you sing.’ Why, heavens, that makes my day. 
        “The Lord is not looking for talent or ability. He’s looking for availability. So, if we put ourselves in the light of being a blessing to others, becoming reflectors, and we get that positive feedback, it reaffirms that, yes, I am in God’s will, and I’m doing what I feel is a calling for me. It’s as much a part of me as anything in my life, being able to glorify God through song. I’ll probably sing until I’m so old I’ll probably croak like a frog, but I’ll still be making a joyful noise. 
        “The blessings have so exceeded anything that I could ever hope for or deserve. Through my music ministry, I have met so many icons and pillars of Gospel music. And God has blessed me with a wonderful wife who has supported me through the years in raising our three daughters. She is as wonderful a mother and grandmother as anybody could ever hope for. She has been a great blessing. I couldn’t have done any of the things that I have been able to do, had it not been for her support.” 
        He added that, in addition to his three daughters, God has blessed him with four grandchildren, Mikala, Jordan, Ella, and Drayden. 
        “We pray for our children daily,” he said. “Our youngest daughter was in a serious accident, and we came close to losing her. She hung between life and death for at least two or three days. It’s a miracle that she’s even alive. God has shown her a lot of mercy, and she continues to be in our prayers every day.    
        “We’re thankful for the salvation of our children, and we pray for the salvation of our grandchildren. That’s most important. 
        “And I think probably the biggest single blessing in my life, besides my own personal salvation, is having a godly heritage. It has been the basis of my entire Christian experience and has provided the foundation from which my own personal ministry is launched. That’s a huge blessing.”