SKF NOTE: Smokey Dacus said he is the first drumset player to play with a country band. The full transcript of our interview is available on my blog here. The start of this tape is clipped because I had switched cassettes during this phone interview, missing a few seconds of Smokey talking.

But, Smokey is talking about a young recording engineer, around the time of this interview, who is puzzled Smokey is using so few drums in the studio. Smokey tells the engineer, “You don’t need alot of drums to play rhythm.” And to prove his point, Smokey sets aside his snare drum, and records the date using hi-hat and bass drum only.

Finally, Smokey shares some historical information on how he muffled his bass drum for studio recordings starting in 1935!