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NOW AVAILABLE at DEBISMITH.com

Above, career highlights from my past musical incarnations with wonderful friends and family – The Smith Sisters, The Four Bitchin’ Babes, The Beltway Broads *, The Hags, and my mom!

Wait. What? I’m back?! I’ve taken a significant hiatus but, sure, why not? True, the long impact of Covid and the current world situation can get us down (and personally I have experienced the passing of both of my parents within a year and my son being critically ill with pneumonia). But creating is what I love to do and share, and I hope you will have as much enjoyment listening to my new album as I had creating it. (Live performances, beginning in March, to follow).

I have a new ALBUM and a new BOOK, both called “Flight of the Robin!” I would love your support by your purchase of either or both of these new releases, as well as memory-lane merchandise, available on my NEW website DEBISMITH.COM. You’ll find all my CDs, mp3 downloads, and paperback books, including even long out-of-print Smith Sister albums! I will mail your order to you personally with heartfelt thanks and sign it however you might indicate… and include a little surprise GIFT! If you order a PRE-RELEASE copy beginning January 30 FROM DEBISMITH.COM, you will receive it earlier than the official release, which is February 27^th, when radio promotion begins.

(*Little known fact: I was briefly a member of a Washington D.C.-based group called “The Beltway Broads” with Cathy Fink, Marcy Marxer, Grace Griffith, Freyda Epstein (Trapezoid), and Sue Richards. So I went from being a HAG to a BELTWAY BROAD to a BITCHIN’ BABE. Which was, in a weird way, kind of a promotion, don’t you think?)

“Flight of the Robin” contains NEW ORIGINAL SONGS, never released, recorded with Pat Buchanan (Academy of Country Music Guitarist of the Year), Shawn Fichter, fellow-Babe Marcy Marxer, Tammy Rogers (SteelDrivers), Billy Noble, John Jennings, and The Smith Sisters; with one song penned by the brilliant Richard Thompson, and one song I co-wrote with Danny Pendleton (Starland Vocal Band).

Many thanks and love to all of you for your support through the years.

Flight of the Robin

Song Descriptions by Debi Smith

All lyrics FCC clean

1. Nebraska Moon (Debi Smith/Degan Music/ASCAP)

This song is based on the lives of my father and his brother, my Uncle Luther. Raised on a Nebraska farm during the dustbowl and depression years -- hard work was very much a part of their daily lives -- both were ready to try something else when they were ripe with vigor in their late teens. In later years, Dad still dreamed of Nebraska, being on that horse with the plow, stuck in the mud; and Luther’s kids have heard a few stories about how they “ate dirt” on that Nebraska farm (We found the latter out when we heard our cousins talking before Mom and I gave a reading/music performance of our book Look Up at the Hawks at the Smithsonian - based on my Grandma Ruth Smith’s writings).

2. Great Wall of China (Debi Smith/Danny Pendleton/Degan Music/ASCAP)

I co-wrote this with Danny Pendleton, a brilliant pedal steel player and musician gone too soon, and a lovely man. Danny and I jammed together briefly with some other D.C. musicians (he and a few of the other members of the Starland Vocal Band, which he was in) in the 1980’s. Around that time, Danny handed me a piece of poetry he had written to set music to. I came across it recently and did just that.

3. Vincent Van Gogh’s Mom (Debi Smith/Degan Music/ASCAP)

Can you imagine if you were Vincent Van Gogh’s parent? I guess in some ways I can; my son has autism and happens to be a wonderful painter (LeeJaworek.com) who paints with “rainbow colors.” He says, “Mom, each color is just as important as every other color.” My little Buddha. What was it like to be Vincent Van Gogh’s Mom? Vincent, who struggled so, and never knew how famous he would be? How many other “rainbow minds” are being over-looked because they are different?

4. Dimming of the Day (Richard Thompson/Beeswing Music/Kobalt)

A beautiful song by the brilliant Richard Thompson, who I was thrilled to open for at a theatre in Virginia. I spoke to Richard recently, who was happy to hear I was releasing this version. This could be The Smith Sisters last official recording before I went on to become a soloist and join The Four Bitchin’ Babes. By the way, Megan and I may not perform very much anymore, but we are still sisters!

5. Help Them Along (Debi Smith/Degan Music/ASCAP)

I began performing this song with The Babes but never recorded it on one of our albums. Now seems like a good time to release it. It features me on Irish Bodhrán and Nashville’s Shawn Fichter on percussion.

6. Rescue You (Debi Smith/Degan Music/ASCAP)

Every time we get on an airplane, we hear the flight attendant say, “put on your oxygen mask before you help others.” It is not always the easiest thing to do, especially when you need to take care of others; but even if it is just healing or re-charging your spiritual batteries, I fully support rescuing yourself. As my sister would say, “Absolve yourself of all guilt” and have some fun! This is what I call “a total Babe song!”

7. Here I Go Again (Debi Smith/Degan Music/ASCAP)

Love. It can happen any time. I remember fellow-Babe Sally

Fingerett telling me when she first started dating her soon-to-be husband Michael, “I’m so happy… I feel kind of… stoned! when I’m with him.” I said, “Sal, you’re in love!”

8. Flight of the Robin (Debi Smith/Degan Music/ASCAP)

These lyrics were based on a letter my mom wrote to the 14 members of the much-treasured Round Robin circle she formed with her classmates that began in 1947 at graduation from The College of Wooster in Ohio (in a Round Robin, each friend takes turns adding their personal news and updates to a collection of letters circulating among them and mails it on to the next on the list). She was one of the last surviving members, all of whom lived and kept the letters circulating for 75 years, when they were in their 90’s. Those letters are now in a book, also called Flight of the Robin, which one reviewer described as " Lessons in both women's history and in how to "see life steadily and see life whole" - available on Amazon and at DebiSmith.com.

9. Castaway (Debi Smith/Degan Music/ASCAP)

I began this song when I became a member of the all-women traditional Irish music group, The Hags. The Hags originally got their name when they sat in with a group called Haggis; they became “the Hags of Haggis.” I learned to play the bodhrán since the band member I replaced had played it. I took to it instantly and still use it in all my performances.

10. I Still Think About You (Debi Smith/Degan Music/ASCAP)

This song reminds me of the kinds of songs “Trio” (Dolly, Linda, Emmy) would sing. An ache in my heart was the inspiration – the truth is… I started writing it many years ago before I married my wonderful husband Michael Jaworek (who books the fabulous club The Birchmere in Alexandria, VA). I dated Merle Watson, who performed with his father, Doc Watson. My heart was broken when he died in a tractor accident at age 36 in 1985.

11. Night’s Guitar (Debi Smith/Degan Music/ASCAP)

This song wrote itself. I think of the nights when the sky is so black you can see every star, and the days where the sky is clear and bluer than blue. I sit still for awhile and look up. It’s all there. I’m still trying to listen to the song it’s playing and will until the day I fly away to join the band.

12. Harvest Song (Debi Smith/Degan Music/ASCAP)

Based on my Grandma Ruth Morgan Smith’s resilient spirit and writings. Living on a farm in Nebraska during The Great Depression -- dust storms, droughts, losing their house in a flood

– she was always an optimist and took time to “Look Up at the Hawks.” She wrote on scraps of paper: “I lay me down and look up at the hawks in the blue sky. There is a high wind blowing -- and there they poise, perfectly still, tipping until they balance. Ah me, lying flat on the back and gazing at the Universe overhead, one does discern the unimportance of being important.” (From Look Up at the Hawks, available on Amazon and DebiSmith.com).

Flight of the Robin is not only the name of the album and its title song, but also Debi’s recent book published with her mother, Vivian Douglas Smith. Vivian died in 2025, and Debi’s father, David Smith, in 2024. The album is dedicated to the memory of her parents.

Thank you to one of you. Art is a two-way street. Thank you for keeping music and the arts alive.