A song by Mack Allen Smith of Greenwood will be featured in an HBO program airing Sunday night.
The rockabilly singer/songwriter leased the rights to “I’m Not Drunk I’m Just Drinking” to the show “Eastbound and Down.” The episode airs at 9:10 p.m. Sunday.
The only problem for Smith, an amiable 73-year-old music veteran, is that he doesn’t have HBO. But he said Johnny Jennings of Greenwood promised to record the program for him and put it on a DVD.
Smith said a woman from California who does licensing for the show called him about using the song. The makers of the program had one of Smith’s CDs, searched the Internet for more and heard the song. Smith recorded it in 1970 on his label, Delta Sound Records.
He said he’s never seen the show but remembers his granddaughter watching it and being glad after the first season that it got renewed.
It’s about Kenny Powers, an uncouth, washed-up former major league pitcher who returns to his North Carolina hometown as a substitute PE teacher while trying to resurrect his baseball career. It’s produced by comedian/actor Will Ferrell’s company and is in its third season.
Smith was born and raised in Carrollton, graduating from J.Z. George High School in 1956. Over his long career he’s recorded many albums, played in countless honky tonks and even toured England for two weeks in 1979.
“I’m known in England but not in Jackson, Mississippi,” he said with a laugh.
After quitting for nearly two decades, Smith said he “started back hollering again” in 2002 but not at honky tonks anymore. He sticks to schoolhouses and the like with his band, Mack Allen Smith and the Ashes (formerly Mack Allen Smith and the Flames).
nContact Charlie Smith at 581-7235 or csmith@gwcommonwealth.com.
