![]() Dan Smith maintains there have been many talented bands who made it to the brink of stardom, yet because of unexpected circumstances, were never able to break beyond the boundaries of regional notoriety. This is a phenomenon he has witnessed on many occasions, not only through his work as a talent booking agent, but also his career in Riverrock, a popular Kansas City area country band that was inducted into the Kansas Music Hall of Fame. While in high school in the late 1960s, Smith learned to play the drums and briefly performed with a band called Pflash. He explained that they took their name from a premium fuel that was sold at a Fina station where his older brother was working at the time. “I graduated from high school in Overland Park in 1971, later attended a community college and then went to work as a salesman for a real estate company,” he said. “But then I went to work for a place called Midwest Inventory, and that’s where I met Jim Blanton, who shared similar musical interests.” Blanton, who was also a fan of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, was learning to play the fiddle. After about a year of discussing the possibility, the friends decided to form Riverrock and began rehearsing as a five-piece band with John Mumma, Paul Mumma and Steve Hall. “I decided to learn to play the washboard because the drums just seemed to overpower the acoustic performances we were doing,” Smith explained. “That worked out well and set us apart from a lot of other bands.” He continued, “We played our first performance live on July 4, 1974, and only had about an hour’s worth of music, but everybody loved it.” His mother, Janet Smith, initially helped as their booking agent and worked to find venues where they could share their unique fusion of bluegrass and country. They soon were able to make a five-song demo and took a copy of the cassette to a bar in the River Quay District (now River Market). After the owner of the bar heard their music, Riverrock was given a job as the house band and began performing six days a week. As Smith explained, such repeated performances helped them refine their craft as musicians. One evening when Riverrock was playing before a small audience because of wintry weather outdoors, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band was in town and one its members, John McEuen, came to see their show. He was invited to sit in with Riverrock, leading to a lasting friendship between Smith and McEuen. “Around 1976 we had a booking agent that went to conferences for county fairs, and we ended up getting a bunch of dates from that,” Smith said. “For several years, we were busy doing shows and shared the stage with a lot of acts. We opened for groups like the Oak Ridge Boys, Pure Prairie League, and Hank Williams Jr., among others.” In the late 1970s, Riverrock earned some widespread attention by appearing on the Tulsa Opry Show. They also had the opportunity to perform with Minnie Pearl, who, after one of their shows, expressed how impressed she was with Smith’s playing of the washboard. By this time, Riverrock had recorded two albums—one in 1975 at Sound Recorders in Kansas City and a live album in 1977. Then, while still highly popular in the Kansas City region, they recorded the album “Midwest Man” in Nashville in January 1980, featuring the vocals of Rick Harrelson. “Country music was kind of getting out of fashion in the mid-1980s and there was some conflict within the group, so after some change in personnel, I remained the only original member and decided to shut it down,” Smith explained. He added, “I had started my own booking agency in 1979 and began managing other bands such as Glow and Dixie Cadillacs. Glow was my brother’s band, and it came really close to making it to the big time, but it just never came to fruition.” Continuing his booking agency work, Smith decided to put a new version of Riverrock together in 1991. For a while, the group found some renewed success with LaRose, an African American R&B artist, as its lead singer. Regrettably, she later had to leave the music scene for health reasons. “I was still booking a lot of stuff and making a living as a musician, but by the early 2000s, Riverrock was only playing an occasional reunion,” Smith said. “I was also busy operating a recording studio and got to the point where I didn’t have a lot of time to play on the side.” Smith teamed up with Allen Blasco in 2009, a popular local musician whose mother wrote “My Happiness”—the first song recorded by Elvis Presley. They put together Riverrock for a show, which was at the time comprised of three original members. In 2011, Riverrock was inducted into the Kansas Music Hall of Fame. Since then, Riverrock has continued to perform at shows throughout the Kansas City area with Smith and the Mumma brothers. “I believe every town has that kind of story like Riverrock, where a certain band almost makes it to the big leagues but just can’t get over that last hump,” Smith said. “Riverrock has survived a lot of changes in musical tastes, and it’s certainly been a lot of fun.” Smith reflected, “I don’t feel slighted in any way regarding our career in music; I’m just very fortunate to have been able to perform as long as I have and to have become friends with so many wonderful musicians.” Jeremy P. Ämick is the author of the forthcoming book “Movin’ On,” biography of the band Missouri.
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AuthorJeremy P. Ämick is an award-winning author and historian and dedicated to preserving music, military and local histories. Archives
July 2024
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