Laura Smith (blues singer) Laura Smith (blues singer) Laura Smith (March 1882 – February 1932) was an American classic female blues and country blues singer. Songs she recorded include "Gonna Put You Right in Jail" and her version of "Don't You Leave Me Here". She led Laura Smith and her Wild Cats and also worked with Clarence Williams and Perry Bradford. Details of her life outside the music industry are scanty. The researchers Bob Eagle and Eric LeBlanc state that she was born Loretta Bryant in Illinois in 1882. Other sources suggest that she was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, at an unknown date. In
He Was a Friend of Mine like It Is" album in 1969. A rare Bluegrass treatment of the song. In 1963, the Greenbriar Boys recorded "He Was a Friend of Mine" with singer Dian James on their Elektra Records album "Dian & the Greenbriar Boys". The Briarwood Singers, a five-piece folk group, released a version of the song that reached #126 on the "Billboard" charts in December 1963. Bobby Bare also recorded "He Was a Friend of Mine" in 1964, in memory of air crash victim Jim Reeves. That same year, Petula Clark released a French version of the song under the title "Toi qui m'as