Smiley Bates prompted other recording ventures. When the Instrumental hit "Duelling Banjos" from the film "Deliverance" was popular, Smiley, on Flat-Top Guitar, was teamed with Eddie Poirier on 5-String Banjo. Though he had not seen the film, it only took a couple of tries to arrive at an arrangement, which, while not representative of Smiley's recording output, was nevertheless a commercial success. A further album was issued with Eddie and Smiley, and based upon its success, the two teamed up with Rose (Eddie's wife) to record another big-selling Bluegrass album, titled "The Best of Bluegrass". To illustrate how successful Smiley's recordings were,
Fuguing tune masters were] often ill-trained by orthodox standards ... [They] wandered from village to village and eked out an existence by teaching the intricacies of psalm-singing and the rudiments of music to all who cared to learn. To supplement his generally meager income, [the singing master] frequently sold self-compiled tune-books in which psalm tunes of his own composition ... were featured as examples of his skill and artistry. According to Lowens, the fuguing tunes created by these singing masters at first involved a separate fuguing section appended to the end of a complete psalm tune. Later, the fuguing became more integrated