MIDDLEBURG – You can take the Queen’s word for it: Tony Smotherman’s got talent.

“We are all unique musicians just as we are unique human beings,” said the virtuoso guitarist, composer and Middleburg native. “Our touch on the instrument is just as unique as our fingerprint. Not everyone is going to have the same size fingers or the same size hands, so your touch on the instrument is completely unique to you. Everyone has something special. It’s just a matter of sticking it out long enough to find what that is.”

As it is with the music you create, your path to success is uniquely yours. It can be riddled with unexpected twists and turns. Sometimes, the path you set out on leads you down another you never knew existed, bringing you to the most surprising yet rewarding destinations.

For Smotherman, like his music, his journey is unique. From a dirt road to a Winn-Dixie. From the kindness of a high school marine biology teacher to a brush with Queen Elizabeth II and an adventure with the drummer for Jimmy Hendrix’s, Smotherman is working it out his way.

When Smotherman was a teenager growing up along a dirt road in Middleberg, he tagged along with his mom for a trip to Winn Dixie.

“I told my mom I was going to the magazine aisle to look around and noticed this guitar magazine in the middle of all these Home and Garden Magazines, so I opened the first page, and right then, my entire life changed,” Smotherman said.

Smotherman had turned to a picture of the late guitarist Andres Segovia, the legendary classical guitarist with his trademarked thick, horn‐rimmed glasses and string tie. Smotherman said it was a black-and-white picture of him sitting with a classical guitar and an orchestra behind him.

“When I saw that photo, I knew what it sounded like without ever even hearing it,” he said, noting the mellow, resonant sound of the strings come to life on paper. “My imagination went wild. That’s where everything started for me.”

Smotherman read the magazine cover to cover but was particularly interested in the article about Segovia. Shortly after, he started listening to his music and became obsessed with Johann Sebastian Bach, another classical composer.

“I purchased a few of his albums, and then my friend was selling an acoustic guitar for $35, so I bought it from him, and I began trying to listen to these tapes and transcribe what I was hearing,” Smotherman said.

Although his parents didn’t have a lot of money, they found him a local guitar teacher. Smotherman said he has been drawn to the guitar ever since, pushing the boundaries of simple steel and wood.

First, he practiced scales, starting with easier melodies and eventually graduating to more difficult ones, sometimes practicing Bach Lute Suites and Paganini Caprices for up to 10 hours a day. Tony channeled his passion for guitar and classical music into an almost fanatical practice routine while attending high school and keeping up with his homework.

He would even take his guitar to school to practice between classes.

“My teachers would let me play at the end of class maybe once every few weeks, and then once a week, and then a few times a week,” Smotherman said.

With only three years of classical guitar lessons behind him, Smotherman was recognized as Middleburg High’s Most Talented Senior, and in his senior year, one of his teachers submitted some of his musical work to Queen Elizabeth II.

“About a month and a half later, I received a package from the lady waiting for the Queen, and inside was a letter sealed with red wax. I opened it up, and it said Winsor Palace at the top. It was a personal letter from Queen Elizabeth II.”

Her Majesty replied personally with high praise, calling his classical guitar skills ”highly sophisticated,” and encouraged the young guitarist to keep playing music and send her more recordings.

Over the years, Smotherman started learning different styles of music – everything from Jimi Hendrix to Yngwie Malmsteen to Sitar player Ravi Shankar.

“I thought, man, this is a whole other way to play guitar. I wanted to do that, so I bought my first electric guitar and began to see all the infinite ways to play the electric. I began playing Rock, Blues, Jazz, Indian, Celtic, Egyptian and Spanish Flamenco guitar,” he said.

If you listen to the electrified songs on his 2019 album, “Silent Storms,” then tune in, expecting something similar on his latest release, “Idle Forest,” you will be surprised by Smotherman’s mastery of a wide range of styles.

His mother greatly influenced his musical diversity, Smotherman said.

“My mother would always play Greek, Lebanese and Indian music in the house while I was growing up. That was really my first musical influence, and I still have an affinity for it today,” he said.

Much like his hero and classical guitar virtuoso, Andres Segovia, Smotherman turned the classical guitar into a worldwide instrument, mimicking a range of sounds and fusing all of those influences into something distinctive and highly expressive.

“All these world styles started seeping into my playing. Because I didn’t have the influence of big-city guitar players, I sounded differently than everyone else,” he said.

Smotherman started playing gigs with his band, The Tony Smotherman Project, as well as a sideman for various artists, including Rick Derringer, Leon Russell, Adrian Legg and many other top artists. He even opened and performed with Buddy Miles of Jimi Hendrix’s The Band of Gypsies and Carlos Santana.

“My friend called and said you must get to Jacksonville Beach right now. We are having a rehearsal with Jimi Hendrix’s Drummer, Buddy Miles, and he wants to meet you. So I grabbed my guitar and amp and drove to Jacksonville Beach,” he said.

Smotherman spent the next hours listening to Hendrix’s Album, Band of Gypsies.

To Smotherman’s surprise, Miles asked him to accompany the band in an old blues song by Muddy Waters during rehearsal. When it came turn for Smotherman to solo, Miles stopped everything and said, “Young man, can you turn your microphone up.”

“So I started my solo again,” Smotherman said, “And [Miles] was watching really hard, shaking his head yes. When we were done, he asked me to go on tour with him for the next two weeks.”

He packed his bags and hit the road for an adventure of a lifetime.

“Being on tour was the best teacher. Every night was a lesson. I learned how to hold back and work as a band. I learned how to feel the music in the room and the audience,” Smotherman said.

Miles featured Smotherman every night.

“We did the tour, and it went really well. We played off and on for four or five years,” Smotherman said.

Smotherman has also been featured in all the major guitar magazines, such as Guitar Player and Guitar World magazine, the same magazine that inspired him to be a musician when he was a young teenager.

He has since released five solo albums.

Smotherman released his first solo album, Universal Melody, in 20l1, combining rock and world music sounds. He has since released four accompanying albums, including an all-acoustic album, Idle Forest, in mid-June.

“It was written during the Pandemic to help people find some peace. Those songs came to me very easily. It’s as if it just wrote itself,” he said. “It was a very specific project for me because the main intent was to help others through that difficult period.”

The album is dedicated to the late David Wright, Smotherman’s Marine Biology teacher at Middleburg. “He always let me play in his class and supported me. Even after graduating, we kept in touch.”

Wright sent Smotherman pictures from Thunderhead Mountain, Tennessee, to inspire Smotherman’s music.

“Unfortunately, Dave passed away about three months after he messaged me,” Smotherman said. “And I realized I never wrote that song. So, I wrote Thunder Mountain to fulfill my promise to him and to give that song to his family. It was really the inspiration for Idle Forest.”

Smotherman is currently working on a full classical album in the style of Bach. He also keeps about 50 private students when he is not traveling or performing.

“That was a turn I didn’t expect in my musical career, but I knew it was my calling to teach others,” he said. He started teaching lessons out of his bedroom when he was 17 and had been teaching for a little more than 25 years.

“Sometimes, I ask my students to envision their best versions of themselves and how they want to play and sound because it sounds like something. And then they have something to work towards. At the end of all this, just don’t give up. Some way or another, things work out in the end.”

You can hear the music of Tony Smotherman on Spotify and Apple Music and learn more about show dates and online guitar instruction at www.tonysmotherman.com.