Sunday Morning Country Classic Spotlight to Feature Sammi Smith

On Sunday, October 25th, at 11 a.m. join me for the Sunday Morning Country Classic Spotlight featuring the music and life of Sammi Smith.  We get started at 9 am with country classics at 98.1 FM Minnesota’s New Country, online and on your mobile device. 

Sammi was born Jewel Faye Smith on August 5, 1943 in Orange, California. She was the daughter of a serviceman who moved around when she was a child.  She was raised in Oklahoma, Texas, Arizona and Colorado.

At age 11 she dropped out of school and began singing in nightclubs, married her first husband at age 15 and was best known for her 1971 country pop hit, Help Me Make It Through the Night.  The song written by her good friend Kris Kristofferson and she was one of the few women associated with the outlaw country music phenomenon in the mid 1970’s.

Her recording of Help Me Make It Through the Night won a 1971 Grammy for Best Country Vocal Performance for a female vocalist.  Smith continued to have success until 1975.  She reached the Top Ten twice with Then You Walk In and Today I Started Loving You Again, her last top ten hit.

Sammi Smith was married three times and has four children.  In the mid 1980’s, she married her third husband, Johnny Johnson and together they ran a cattle ranch in Bristow, Oklahoma.

She still made appearances on the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tennessee.  On February 12, 2005 at age 61, Sammi Smith died at her home in Oklahoma City of emphysema.

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