Within the first few notes over the car stereo, Micah Smith found the harmony to complement Stevie Wonder’s voice. His smooth tenor matched Wonder’s, as if playing out a conversation between old friends.

Smith’s daughter Faith remembers it well. "When was the last time that they heard you say, ‘Mother or father, I love you?” he sang — then cue the rolled-down windows. The wind pounded against the small Jeep’s doors as they left the Empowerment Temple AME Church and drove down Primrose Avenue in Baltimore. “Ones you say you cherish every day, can instantly be taken away." The car moved faster, then braked playfully to the beat, searing Faith’s seatbelt against her skin.

“We’re jerking and he’s singing ... feet’s burning, belt’s burning, everything,” she said Monday, laughing with her younger sister, Gabrielle.

“We’d have to sing it with him, but it was his song to sing,” Gabrielle said.

Smith, a Baltimore-raised songwriter, composer and gospel musician, remained a doting father to his children with former wife Sherell Townes — Faith, 18, Gabrielle, 17, Malachi, 12, and Aidan, 11 — until his death on April 4 from health complications. Smith leaves behind both a family and community who are forever changed by his passion for life and attempts to inspire others through music.

To childhood friend Jonathan Ball, Smith’s vocal ability was unmatched. He recalled Smith walking into chorus class at Randallstown High School and blowing the teacher away.

As a teenager, Ball said, Smith was the embodiment of charisma: athletic, but just enough to bond with the other guys; smart, but not in a way that felt superior; religious, but unafraid to live freely. Girls liked him, but he never got caught up in the drama, always keeping God at his center.

He spent two to three days a week going to his mother’s Pentecostal church in Westport. Patricia Smith was also a singer who expressed her talents through her faith. His father, Howard, was an insurance claims officer, whom Ball described as “very loving,” and his younger sister Melissa was his best friend. Smith also had a half-brother who didn’t live with the family, but became an important part of the teen’s life.

Smith and Ball received a strict upbringing at church. It was there that Smith learned about “anointing,” which Ball described as the art of getting yourself out of the way so life can shine through. The concept proved a founding tenet for Smith, who could remove all the pressure that came with performing and relinquish control. His voice was “just a gift,” Ball said — that he was obligated to share.

Smith graduated high school a year early and attended Morgan State University in 2000 for a year before leaving to pursue music full-time. “He was a savant,” Ball said. ”He wanted to be successful.”

Smith went on to become a member of the Soulful Symphony, a nationally acclaimed orchestra of mostly Black and Latino artists who perform at the Hippodrome Theatre. He released multiple solo albums and shared the stage with artists from R&B crooner Jasmine Sullivan and jazz musician Lonnie Liston Smith to singer and producer Frank McComb, according to the Kennedy Center website.

Smith also worked as a private vocal coach in Baltimore and taught in the city’s schools.

Smith loved to travel, and his work extended far beyond Baltimore. He performed on cruises and other far-off gigs from Hawaii to Canada that allowed him to see the world — a passion he passed on to his children, who accompanied him on music tours to Uruguay and Argentina.

“He wanted us to see the world,” Faith Smith said. “He’s a people person, so meeting new people, having new experiences, getting outside of what you already know, I think that was big for him.”

She said her dad wasn’t the type of father who needed to be holier-than-thou. He wanted to be respected, but still her friend. He hoped when Faith turned 21 the two could grab a drink at a bar and speak candidly about life and adulthood, she said.

He was her vocal coach, and while at times tough — like when he coached Faith and Gabrielle’s camp choir and made sure the duo had their keys down — he pushed them because he knew they were capable. The family often sang together, said Gabrielle, who, while reluctant to sing publicly, fondly remembers the “Happy Birthday” harmonies each year that made their home sound like a choir.

“We were really good with harmonizing,” Faith said — she the soprano, Gabrielle the alto and her father the tenor.

Although the duo are now missing a tenor, they continue to sing. Faith said she is reminded of her father every time she drives his Jeep, music blasting with the windows down. Her younger brother Aidan, who has yet to start his vocal training, said he keeps his father’s memory alive by holding onto a pair of Smith’s sunglasses.

Smith taught his kids to be unafraid and tackle the challenging parts of life head-on. He’d call on Faith to “eat that frog,” a saying that meant to take on whatever difficult obstacle was weighing her down before chasing what appeared easy.

In his final days, she remembers seeing her father struggling to battle his multiple sclerosis. She felt the dream he had of dying at 88 on a sandy beach was now tainted with the decades of pain the autoimmune disorder would cause him to endure.

“It would have crippled him and left him completely unsatisfied with his life,” she said. He’d no longer be able to use his body — to work out, to drive, to perform.

Though his death has shaken the family, Faith is proud of him. “In the end,” she said, “I feel like he ate his frog.”

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