- published: 09 Jan 2012
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Calvin Grant Shofner (born April 7, 1932), known professionally as Cal Smith, is an American country musician, most famous for his 1974 hit "Country Bumpkin."
Smith was born on April 7, 1932, in Gans, Oklahoma, and was raised in Oakland, California. He began his music career performing at the Remember Me Cafe in San Francisco at the age of 15, but he was not financially successful at first. Throughout the 1950s, he was not able to continue his music career, so he worked at various other jobs, including truck driving and bronco busting. He appeared on the California Hayride television show in the mid-1950s before serving two years in the military.
After his discharge, he began playing in a band in the San Francisco Bay Area. In 1961, country music legend Ernest Tubb heard the band play and, after an audition, hired Smith to play guitar for the Texas Troubadours. Thus, Smith is heard playing in most of Tubb's 1960s recordings. His first solo single was 'Tear Stained Pillow/Eleven Long Years on the local Plaid label. Smith's stage name began to catch on after he released his second solo single, "I'll Just Go Home," in 1966 for Kapp Records, and he first cracked the Billboard charts with his second single, "The Only Thing I Want."
Well it's time to pay the fiddler
And it's sad to know we've danced it all away
But the warm night's disappearing
Leaving nothing but the cold hard light of day
And it's time to start erasing
All the rainbows we've been chasing in our minds
We know there's no way of making
Other ties on us unravel and unwind
Yes it's time to pay the fiddler
And today's the day the first installment's due
For the rest of all my days I'll wonder why
The maker mismatched me and you
But there's so much to consider like my wife and little children
Will need and want my love just like you do
Now it's time to pay the fiddler but before we pay the fiddler
Let's ask him to please play one last final tune
Well it's time to pay the fiddler
And there's naked sorrow dripping from your eyes
Unrestrained and unashamed we love each other
Now we've got to leave it lie
But I can feel my hands trembling
As I search to find the handle on the door
So let's let the fiddler pull his magic bow