Jay Smar
Cultural Coal Mining Programs
Traditional American and Original Folk Music

P.O. Box 68 Main Street
Landingville, PA 17942
Toll Free: 1-800-645-SONG (7664) or (570) 366-0703
www.jaysmar.com
PERFORMANCES
  • Scotland tour 2005 and 2006
    .
  • Philadelphia Folk Festival 2003 and 2006
    .
  • New Jersey Folk Festival 2006
    .
  • Godfrey Daniels, Bethlehem, PA
    .
  • Musikfest, Bethlehem, PA
    .
  • Mayfair Celebration, Allentown, PA
    .
  • Kerrville Folk Festival, Kerrville Texas
    .
    ..
  • Gerde's Folk City, New York, NY
  • Blue Bird Cafe, Nashville, Tenn
  • "Bound For Glory" radio program. Ithaca, NY 2003
  • Gene Shay's Folk Program, WHYY, Philadelphia, PA
  • WXPN Sleep Hollow, Philadelphia, PA
  • Grendel's Lair, Philadelphia, PA 1987
    .
  • Caffe Lena, Saratoga Springs, NY
    .
CAREER HIGHLIGHTS
  • Instrumental music for Eastern Shore Artists website, Easton, MD
    .
  • Emcee for Forksville Folk Festival, Forksville, PA 2003, 2004
  • Philadelphia Folk Society Odyssey Program 18 years
    .
  • Co-producer of the Mauch Chunk Folk Festival
    .
  • Selected  for Pennsylvania Performing Arts on Tour Roster 2004
    .
  • Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Roster Music/Educator roster 10 years
  • BMI Writer 13 years
  • Deep Mine Publishing Company Owner 2004
  • "Signed" to Mountain Laurel records, Reading, PA 1991
  • Produced 5 self recordings
  • Produced Jerry Haines "Into My Life" CD 2003
  • Recorded music for BBC Wales documentary, "The Welsh in America" 2002
  • Harrisburg Keystone State Songwriters Association winner 1988
  • Original composition "The Ballad of Glen Onoko" inducted into the Library of Congress, Washington, DC 1987 by Joe Hickerson
  • Worldfolk magazine article, Los Vegas, Nevada 1999
  • "The Ballad of Glen Onoko" used by Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources in Lehigh Valley Legacy Magazine
CHILDREN PROGRAM

Very interactive program with audience singing, children performing on mandolin and fiddle (preceded by the instruments origin), the "origin of" and the teaching of a very simple clog-dancing step, as well as some coal mining stories such as the invention of the first roller-coaster form a coal train called the "Switchback" in Jim Thorpe, PA.

OPENING ACT FOR
  • Leo Kottke
    .
  • Jez Low and the Bad Pennies
    .
  • Norman Blake's Rising Fawn Ensemble
  • Norman and Nancy Blake
  • Hot Rize
  • Tom Paxton
  • John Hammond
  • Loudon Wainright III
  • Tony Trischka
  • Roy Bookbinder
  • Michael Cooney
  • John Herald
  • Newgrass Revival
PROGRAM

1.Cultural Coal mining songs of Northeast Pennsylvania and other coal mining areas preceded by their origin.

2."Ol Time Mountain, Folk and Coal Mining Songs"

A program containing the first program as well as original and traditional American folk, bluegrass songs, original guitar and claw-hammer banjo compositions, as well as flat-footin',  (a form of clog-dancing) fiddling and singing simultaneously.

REVIEWS

  • "...Socket To Me (CD) is an exceptional recording....."Stuck in C" is an incredible instrumental, the kind that makes you say to your friends, "Listen to this"!

Dirty Linen Magazine, Baltimore, MD

  • "...aggressive and flat-picked guitar...warmly recommended"

Blue Grass Unlimited Magazine

  • "......."my kind of folk singer". 

    Mike Miller, CD Reviewer for Philadelphia Folksong Society.
    .
  • "...a premiere practioner of traditional music...highly dedicated...unique asset"."

    Prof. Angus Kress Gillispie
    Rutgers University
    New Jersey Folk Festival

  • "...outstanding...knowledgeable but so natural.."

    Florence de Nagy
    Program Director
    Caroline County Library
    Denton, Md

DISCOGRAPHY

  • High Strung 1980
  • The Ballad of Glen Onoko 1986
  • Socket To ME 1991
  • Country Living Room 1996
  • Banjo Tramps 2001
  • Acoustic Buffet 2004