After three decades of quietly taping flyers to telephone poles, storefronts and deli windows across Manhattan, guitar teacher Dan Smith — the man behind the city's most recognizable homemade ad, "Dan Smith Will Teach You Guitar" — has landed a Times Square billboard, the New York Post reports.
Smith began the campaign in 1992 with a plain flyer carrying his photo, his phone number and that one blunt promise. Nobody called at first, but after two years of relentless postering he had built a business large enough to leave his restaurant job. The slogan eventually took on a life of its own, turning up in pop culture references and parodies and becoming a kind of local trivia question: who is Dan Smith?
This month, HP placed a tribute to his flyer on the Nasdaq billboard in Times Square as part of its Hometown Heroes campaign, running through October 12.
Among Smith's students is Governor David A. Paterson, who picked up the guitar again in 2020 after his wife spotted one of the ubiquitous flyers. Because the Governor is legally blind, Smith adapted his approach so his student could learn the instrument by feel rather than by reading notes.
“I told (Smith) my story, started playing with him and found him to be an excellent teacher,” Paterson told The Post, calling him “a quiet hero — very hometown, right here 20 blocks from me in Manhattan.” The two performed together at an event with Governor Kathy Hochul in 2023.
As a result of Dan Smith's lesson's Gov. Paterson formed a band with Simon Mills and the legendary drummer Liberty DeVitto which performed at New York venues including The Bitter End and a residency at Harley Davidson NYC. The band name—Blind Dog Dave and the Pirate Throng—is typical of the Governor's sense of humor but it all came about because “Dan Smith will teach you guitar.”
