Forty-six years of touring, and one popular Williamsburg band isn’t looking to stop.
The Smith and Wade Band, fronted by Dick Smith and Cabot Wade, is set to release its fifth album titled “Time Well Wasted” — the band’s first album in 17 years — on Dec. 2 .
The pair has been playing music together since 1966, and formally as a band since 1971. While their sound has changed in the intervening 46 years, their desire to bring music to the masses hasn’t.
Wednesday afternoon at a Newtown restaurant, Smith and Wade sat eagerly awaiting word from a music distributor based in England about their latest album.
Smith, 70, is animated and talks with his hands. His shock of white hair and toothy grin give way to a deliberate Tennessean drawl.
“We were always thrust into situations that you’d never have thought two guys from Tennessee would be in, in front of full stadiums,” Smith said.
The pair has played music across the world from Europe to Ethiopia and further to south-east Asia, but Williamsburg has remained home for both of the “come-heres.”
“We’re the Saturday night house band at the [Williamsburg] Lodge,” Smith said. “It’s not a great big place, but it’s a perfect place for our duo.”
is the band’s fifth album, but their first in 17 years. (Courtesy Smith and Wade Band)
While the pair hails from Springfield and Nashville, Tennessee, they’ve become deeply rooted in Williamsburg.
Wade’s sons Jon and Jason are the owners of the Toano restaurant, Two Drummers Smokehouse, and a food truck, Offbeat Eats.
Wade, 69, more reserved than Smith and sporting a black leather jacket, said the band’s journey across North America and the rest of the world mirrored the pair’s musical evolution from driving-electric guitar to more acoustic based sound.
“This has given us new life,” Wade said. “The fact that we shifted to acoustics as opposed to electrics has really changed our focus…you can’t have a guy over in the corner beating the hell out of one instrument while everyone else is cool, calm, and collected. If I play the electric, it just takes over the stage.”
The last time the band released an album, “Cock O’ The Walk,” was in 2000, while Bill Clinton was president, according to Wade. Seventeen years later, “Time Well Wasted” is slated to be released in early December, and Wade doesn’t think it’ll be their last album.
“Another album is going to be forthcoming,” Wade said. “I’m writing all the time.”
“He is very prolific, I am hardly,” Smith said.
The band’s 46 years of touring have given both men plenty to reminisce over, from a stressful tour through Canada years ago to their weekly concerts in Williamsburg. It’s been a never ending journey because music is one of their greatest loves, the pair said.
“Sometimes you have to rationalize why you’re standing up on this stage and playing guitar, it’s not just to make money,” Smith said. It’s who we are.”
