Steve Smith & The Nakeds at the Charlestown Rathskeller
Steve Smith & The Nakeds at the Charlestown Rathskeller on Saturday, August 29, for a night of rhythm and blues, rock & roll, soul and a whole lot of horns.
The 10-piece band takes the Rathskeller’s outdoor stage from 8 to 11 p.m. with a lineup built around frontman Steve Smith, a four-piece rhythm section and five-piece horn section.
Tickets are $10 in advance, plus fees, or $15 at the door.
A Rhode Island Band Since 1973
Calling Steve Smith & The Nakeds a longtime New England band almost undersells it.
The group traces its beginnings to 1973, when it was known as Naked Truth. More than five decades later, Smith is still leading a large-format band through the R&B, soul and rock & roll that first inspired him.
Smith grew up in Smithfield, Rhode Island, in a musical family. He is a first cousin of John Cafferty, who would go on to lead John Cafferty & The Beaver Brown Band.
Some of Smith’s earliest performances were considerably less glamorous.
As children spending summers at Roy Carpenter’s Beach in Matunuck, members of the family would stage talent shows inside their beach cottage. Smith remembers performing in front of the refrigerator.
Eventually, the audience got bigger.
Much bigger.
Ten Musicians and Five Horns
At a time when economics have pushed many touring bands toward smaller lineups, The Nakeds have held onto the big-band sound that has defined them.
The current 10-piece lineup puts Smith on vocals and harmonica in front of guitar, bass, keyboards and drums.
Then come the horns.
Trumpet. Trombone. Alto saxophone. Tenor saxophone. Baritone saxophone.
Five of them.
That combination allows the band to move through R&B, soul and rock & roll with the kind of brass arrangements that would be impossible for a typical four-piece bar band to reproduce.
The result isn’t designed for sitting quietly with your hands folded.
This is dance music.
When the Big Man Joined the Band
One of the most important chapters in The Nakeds’ history began with Clarence Clemons.
Best known as the towering saxophonist beside Bruce Springsteen in the E Street Band, Clemons developed a long musical relationship with Steve Smith & The Nakeds beginning in the 1980s.
And this wasn’t simply a case of a famous musician sitting in for a song one night.
When Clemons wasn’t touring with Springsteen, he performed extensively with The Nakeds. The relationship lasted from roughly 1983 until Clemons’ death in 2011, with shows sometimes billed as Steve Smith & The Nakeds featuring Clarence Clemons.
Clemons also worked with the group in the studio.
The connection brought The Nakeds into the orbit of other E Street musicians as well. They performed alongside guitarist Nils Lofgren and bassist Garry Tallent, while Lofgren and Clemons contributed material to the band’s recordings.
From The Temptations to a President
More than 50 years of performing has produced an unusual résumé.
The Nakeds have shared stages with artists including The Temptations and Gary U.S. Bonds and performed with musicians from Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band.
Smith also performed for President Bill Clinton during the 1990s.
The band became a fixture on the New England live-music circuit while periodically finding its way onto much larger stages and into national media.
Then came MTV.
And eventually, a cartoon baby with a British accent.
The Strange Second Life of “I’m Huge”
The Nakeds recorded “I’m Huge (And the Babes Go Wild)” during the 1980s.
Years later, the song unexpectedly resurfaced when it appeared in an episode of Family Guy in 2008.
For a band already decades into its career, the placement introduced The Nakeds to an entirely new audience. Renewed online attention helped lead to a distribution relationship with Sony and gave the group’s recordings another life long after their original release.
It wasn’t their first encounter with television. The band had previously appeared through MTV’s Basement Tapes during the music channel’s early years.
Their music has also found its way into films, including Dumb and Dumber To and The Greatest Beer Run Ever.
Not bad mileage for a Rhode Island horn band that started in 1973.
The Night Bill Murray Joined In
There’s another story that sounds almost too perfect for this band’s history.
In 2019, filmmaker Peter Farrelly brought Bill Murray to see Steve Smith & The Nakeds perform at Roy Carpenter’s Beach in Matunuck.
Murray didn’t simply watch.
He joined the band.
For Smith, it brought the story around in a peculiar circle. He was back at the same beach where he’d spent childhood summers performing in family talent shows decades earlier.
Except this time there was a professional band behind him.
And Bill Murray had wandered onto the stage.
Rhode Island Music Hall of Fame
By 2013, the band’s place in Rhode Island music history was formally recognized when Steve Smith & The Nakeds were inducted into the Rhode Island Music Hall of Fame.
The Rhode Island House of Representatives also recognized the group for the honor.
The induction acknowledged something that becomes increasingly difficult to ignore with each passing year: The Nakeds haven’t merely survived changes in musical taste, venues and the business of performing.
They’ve kept working.
More than five decades after the first version of the band came together, the calendar still fills with concerts.
Smith has summed up his retirement plan with a wonderfully uncomplicated phrase:
“’Til the phone stops ringing.”
Apparently, it hasn’t.
Saturday Night Down Back
For the August 29 show, The Nakeds head to the Charlestown Rathskeller’s outdoor entertainment area known as Down Back.
The setting includes an outdoor stage, backyard bar and burger shack surrounded by the Rathskeller’s wooded Charlestown property. There’s a bonfire nearby along with lawn games including cornhole and bocce.
It’s intentionally more backyard party than formal concert venue.
That should suit this particular band just fine.
Guests can arrive early for dinner and drinks before heading Down Back for the show.
Once 10 musicians take the stage and five horns start competing with one another for oxygen, the quiet part of the evening is probably over.
Fifty-Three Years and Still Dancing
Longevity in music can sometimes turn a band into a museum piece, faithfully recreating what it did decades earlier for an audience that remembers the first time around.
The Nakeds have taken a different route.
The history is there. Clarence Clemons is part of it. So are MTV, Family Guy, Bill Murray, the Rhode Island Music Hall of Fame and thousands of nights spent on stages around New England.
But none of that matters much if the band can’t still make a Saturday-night crowd move.
That’s the test waiting Down Back at the Rathskeller.
Ten musicians.
Five horns.
Fifty-three years.
And three more hours to play.
Event Details
Event: Steve Smith & The Nakeds at the Charlestown Rathskeller 2026
Date: Saturday, August 29, 2026
Time: 8–11 p.m.
Location: The Charlestown Rathskeller
Address: 489A Old Coach Road, Charlestown, RI 02813
Tickets: $10 online plus fees; $15 at the door
Refunds: No refunds
Performer: Steve Smith & The Nakeds
Music: R&B, soul and rock & roll
Band: 10-piece ensemble with a five-piece horn section
Setting: Outdoor performance at the Rathskeller’s Down Back entertainment area
Guests can arrive early for dinner and drinks before the concert.
More information is available at the Event Website link below.
To purchase tickets, click the Event Ticketing link below.
Featured image is an artistic representation inspired by the event and may not depict the actual people, location, or activities shown.
