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Michael Buffalo Smith

Goodreads Author

Born

in Spartanburg, SC, The United States

June 24

Website

http://www.michaelbuffalo.net

Twitter

buffalotribe

Genre

Music, Nonfiction, Fiction

Member Since

March 2013

URL

https://www.goodreads.com/michaelbuffalosmith

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“Michael Buffalo Smith as a musician, writer, critic, and southern music historian really gets it. His taste and deep appreciation for the real thing are qualities that inspire all of us in his wake. And it's a big wake." - Billy Bob Thornton

Michael Buffalo Smith is an author and music journalist living from Spartanburg, SC. He grew up there during the heat of the seventies Southern Rock boom at a time when his hometown heroes The Marshall Tucker Band were at the top of their game. Even then, Buffalo was sowing the seeds that would one day find him referred to the “Ambassador of Southern Rock.”

Buffalo worked many jobs as newspaper editor, features writer, columnist, (launching a Lewis Grizzard type weekly column while at The Inman Times, ca “Michael Buffalo Smith as a musician, writer, critic, and southern music historian really gets it. His taste and deep appreciation for the real thing are qualities that inspire all of us in his wake. And it's a big wake." - Billy Bob Thornton

Michael Buffalo Smith is an author and music journalist living from Spartanburg, SC. He grew up there during the heat of the seventies Southern Rock boom at a time when his hometown heroes The Marshall Tucker Band were at the top of their game. Even then, Buffalo was sowing the seeds that would one day find him referred to the “Ambassador of Southern Rock.”

Buffalo worked many jobs as newspaper editor, features writer, columnist, (launching a Lewis Grizzard type weekly column while at The Inman Times, called "Southern Accents.") sports reporter, layout and more. He also logged several years as a radio air personality catering to the sounds of the beautiful south while singing and playing his own music and recording five albums that featured many of the old Capricorn gang, including: Bonnie Bramlett, Pete Carr, George McCorkle and Tommy Crain.

In 1997 Buffalo’s first book was published by Marshall Tucker Entertainment of Beverly Hills, CA. “Carolina Dreams: The Musical Legacy of Upstate SC” is a history of the MTB and all the other great music that came from the region.

Smith began writing for various regional and national publications including The Atlanta Journal Constitution, The Spartanburg Herald Journal, The Greenville Journal, Y’all, Relix, Mojo, Hittin The Note, Discoveries, and Goldmine where he became the “go to” writer for all things Southern rock. He created several 10,000 word cover stories for Goldmine, including features on The Allman Brothers Band, Marshall Tucker, Charlie Daniels, and Gov’t Mule (in their first ever magazine cover story.) He also wrote countless features on everything from surf music to Alice Cooper, Frank Zappa and record collecting, as well as hundreds of album reviews.

In 1998, Buffalo founded the online magazine GRITZ and began a ride that has lasted over 12 years, including three years as a glossy print magazine. During the GRITZ years, Buffalo conducted countless interviews and wrote hundreds of features, reviews and columns/blogs. In 2006 he joined forces with another internet site and continued doing what he does best, writing about Southern music.

When CMT needed a Southern Rock authority to appear on their Outlaw Country and Southern Rock special, they enlisted Buffalo. He was later featured on the documentary section of the Shout! Factory release "Live from the Garden State" by The Marshall Tucker Band.

He’s latest book, "Prisoner of Southern Rock," with a foreword by Billy Bob Thornton, was published by the prestigious Mercer University Press of Macon, Georgia in September, 2012.

He has also self-published a 500-page collection of his Southern Rock interviews and an equally massive sequel. HE also publisshe "The Brown Box," a history of the old Greenville (SC) Memorial Auditorium.

Smith just finished up work on his second book for Mercer Press, an oral history of southern rock. He is also working on a col- lection of southern based fiction short stories, and a non-fiction book about the rock band KISS, as well as a couple of movie screenplays.

Michael Buffalo also publishes a bi-monthly magazine called KUDZOO, and hosts a companion weekly radio talk show.

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Combine Editions
Michael Buffalo Smith’s books

Average rating: 4.23 · 60 ratings · 10 reviews · 16 distinct works • Similar authors

	Rebel Yell really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 15 ratings — published 2014	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Prisoner of Southern Rock: A Memoir by Michael Buffalo Smith (Goodreads Author), Billy Bob Thornton (Foreword) 4.15 avg rating — 13 ratings — published 2012 — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Carolina Dreams: The Musical Legacy of Upstate South Carolina 4.50 avg rating — 8 ratings — published 1997 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Road Goes on Forever: Fifty Years of the Allman Brothers Band Music (1969-2019) by Michael Buffalo Smith (Goodreads Author), Chuck Leavell (Foreword) 4.50 avg rating — 8 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Capricorn Rising: Conversations in Southern Rock 4.50 avg rating — 6 ratings — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	From Macon to Jacksonville: More Conversations in Southern Rock really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 2 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Brown Box: Remembering Greenville Memorial Auditorium it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 1 rating — published 2011 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	My Kind of Country it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 1 rating	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Outlaws, Rebels & Renegades really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 1 rating	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Outlaws, Rebels & Renegades II really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 1 rating	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

More books by Michael Buffalo Smith…

1 post
Michael Buffalo Smith's Blog

Greetings from Carolina

Wow. I have never read so much in my LIFE. Seems I am always reading at least three books at the same time, and writing three or four! Fun!

I wanted to tell you guys that I am slowly but surely moving everything in at michaelbuffalo.net, and that's where most of my "blogging" (I still don't care for that word) will be posted. I hope y'all will visit!

Michael Buffalo

1 like · Like • 0 comments • flag

Published on March 04, 2014 11:50

Series by Michael Buffalo Smith

Music and the American South (16 books)
by

Michael Buffalo Smith (Goodreads Author),

Chuck Leavell (Foreword)

4.18 avg rating — 191 ratings

Michael is Currently Reading

Michael Smith is currently reading

Love Ain't Nothing but Sex Misspelled / The Beast That Shouted Love at the Heart of the World (Edgeworks, #4)

by Harlan Ellison

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Mar 19, 2021 09:46AM

Michael Smith is currently reading

America's Game: The NFL at 100

by Jerry Rice

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Mar 19, 2021 09:42AM

Michael Smith is currently reading

Out of the Vinyl Deeps: On Rock Music

by Ellen Willis

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Mar 19, 2021 09:41AM

Quotes by Michael Buffalo Smith (?)

“I was born the same year the greatest automobile in the history of automobiles was created, the 1957 Chevrolet. Thank God only one of us had tail fins.”
― Michael Buffalo Smith, Prisoner of Southern Rock: A Memoir

tags: birth, chevys

2 likes

“Maybe that's why the good Lord gave us these vivid memory capabilities. When stress hits, we can just close our eyes, lean back and relax, and enjoy a game of Tidly-Winks, the sound of a Pete Rose baseball card in the spokes of our bike, or maybe a nice slice of watermelon - with a sprinkle of salt.”
― Michael Buffalo Smith, Prisoner of Southern Rock: A Memoir

tags: memories

1 likes

Michael’s Quotes

“If you don't have time to read, you don't have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.”
― Stephen King

tags: reading, writing

13095 likes

“Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming "Wow! What a Ride!”
― Hunter S. Thompson, The Proud Highway: Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman, 1955-1967

tags: adventure, death, life

5806 likes

“Sometimes I think nothing is simple but the feeling of pain.”
― Lester Bangs, Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung

18 likes

“The Edge... There is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over.”
― Hunter S. Thompson, Hell's Angels

tags: brinksmanship, crazy, crisis, insanity

1804 likes

“Rock 'n' roll is an attitude, it's not a musical form of a strict sort. It's a way of doing things, of approaching things. Writing can be rock 'n' roll, or a movie can be rock 'n' roll. It's a way of living your life.”
― Lester Bangs

58 likes

More of Michael’s quotes…