Story Behind the Song: Jo Smith, ‘Old School Groove’
Jo Smith's song "Old School Groove," from her Introducing Jo Smith EP, is also the track on that project that she likes the best. Written by Smith along with Ben Burgess and Bobby Huff, the tune is the result of its three writers finally capturing the sound that Smith had been trying to create. Below, Smith recalls for The Boot the day she, Burgess and Huff co-wrote "Old School Groove."
When we were trying to find co-writers that could really help me accomplish what I wanted to accomplish creatively, [Burgess and Huff] were two that raised their hand, like, "We get it. We want to help. We want to do it. We can do this." I’d written one song with them, and it was real close, but no cigar.
I walked in, and they actually had this idea and some of the chorus melody, and I was like, "Okay! We’re on something." And then I came in, and we wrote these verses, and I kind of put my melodic touch on the verse part of it. And that’s how that song came to be.
My favorite part is still, to this day, that broken-down guitar solo, because that’s so rare. Normally, a solo is the big part of the song, with instrumentation, and I loved it when Ben Burgess broke that down.
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