Chris Smither
Chris Smither | |
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Background information | |
Born | Miami, Florida, U.S. | November 11, 1944
Genres | Folk, rock, blues |
Occupation(s) | Singer-songwriter |
Instrument(s) | Vocals, guitar |
Years active | 1967–present |
Labels | Poppy, United Artists, Adelphi, Flying Fish, High Tone, Signature Sounds |
Website | www |
William Christopher Smither (born November 11, 1944)[1] is an American folk/blues singer, guitarist, and songwriter. His music draws deeply from the blues, American folk music, and modern poets and philosophers.
Early life, influences and education
He was born in
In 1960, Smither and two friends entered and won a folk "
In 1964, Smither flew to New York City two days prior to boarding the SS United States for the five-day transatlantic voyage to Paris for his Junior Year Abroad program, which his father helped administer for Tulane.[2] While in New York, he stopped at The Gaslight Cafe to see his hero, Mississippi John Hurt. Once in Paris, Smither often spent time playing his guitar instead of attending classes.[4]
Smither returned to New Orleans in 1965. With a few clothes and his guitar, he soon took off for Florida to meet another musical hero,
Professional career
Smither soon began writing and performing his own songs. He achieved some local notice and by 1967 was featured on the cover of The Broadside of Boston magazine.[6] In 1968, music photographer David Gahr's book, The Face of Folk Music featured Smither's picture.
By 1969, after living in several places around Cambridge, Smither moved to Garfield Street in Cambridge and often visited
In 1970, he released his first album I'm a Stranger Too! on Poppy Records, followed by Don't It Drag On the next year.[1] He recorded a follow-up, Honeysuckle Dog, in 1973 for United Artists Records but Smither was dropped from the label and the album went unreleased until 2004, when it was issued by Tomato Records.[4] Despite no longer having a recording contract, Smither continued to tour and became a fixture in New England's folk clubs.[citation needed]
In 1972, a longstanding working relationship with Bonnie Raitt[4] took shape as Raitt's cover of "Love Me Like a Man" appeared on her second album Give It Up.[1] Raitt has since made it a signature song of her live performances, and the song has been included on several of her live albums and collections. She has openly expressed admiration for Smither's songwriting and guitar playing, once calling Smither "my Eric Clapton."[7] In 1973, Raitt covered Smither's song "I Feel the Same" on her Takin' My Time album.[1]
Following this mixed early success, Smither's recording and songwriting career had a long fallow period while he struggled personally.[4][8] In his official biography, Smither is quoted: "I was basically drunk for 12 years, and somehow I managed to climb out of it; I don't know why."[citation needed]
Smither began to re-emerge as a performer in the late 1970s, and gained a few press notices. In 1979, he was featured in Eric von Schmidt and Jim Rooney's book, Baby Let Me Follow You Down,[9] and the next year in the UK's Melody Maker magazine.
In 1984, Smither's belated third album, It Ain't Easy was released on Adelphi Records,[1] which the Boston Phoenix acoustic music critic Jon Herman called "the naked and sophisticated blues album that Eric von Schmidt, Rolf Cahn, Spider John Koerner, and other white revivalists groped for more than 20 years ago, at the dawn of the folk revival." [citation needed]
He recorded his next album, Another Way to Find You, in front of a live audience at Soundtrack Studio in Boston and in 1991 released it on
In 1996, he began recording live concerts in the US and Ireland for what would later become a live CD. The next year, he released his seventh album, Small Revelations (Hightone), and filmed an instructional guitar video for Happy Traum's Homespun Tapes in Woodstock, New York. In 1997, Smither's music was used exclusively on the entire score of the short film, The Ride, directed by John Flanders and produced by Flanders's company, RoughPine Productions. Flanders plays a folk-singer in the film who is largely influenced by Smither. The Ride won the Audience Best Film Award at the 2002 Moscow Film Festival.[citation needed]
1998 was a year of small breakthroughs and the start of a fertile songwriting and recording period for Smither. HighTone reissued Another Way to Find You and Happier Blue and Jorma Kaukonen invited Smither to teach at his Fur Peace Ranch in Ohio. In addition, Smither toured with Dave Alvin, Ramblin' Jack Elliott and Tom Russell as Hightone's Monsters of Folk tour, and Emmylou Harris recorded his song "Slow Surprise", for the Horse Whisperer soundtrack.[8]
In 1999, Smither released Drive You Home Again (HighTone). Also in 1999 he went to New Zealand and played at the
In September 2006, Smither released Leave the Light On (Signature Sounds Recordings) produced by David 'Goody' Goodrich. His song, "Origin of Species," from the CD was named No. 42 on Rolling Stone Magazine's list of 100 Best Songs of the Year 2006. Smither was also named as 2007's Outstanding Folk Act by the Boston Music Awards. That year he also contributed an essay entitled "Become a Parent" to the book Sixty Things to Do When You Turn Sixty (Ronnie Sellers Productions).[11] And he narrated a two-CD audio book recording of Will Rogers' Greatest Hits (Logofon Recordings).
Smither released a 78-minute live concert DVD, One More Night, (Signature Sounds) in February 2008. In May 2009, Smither's short story "Leroy Purcell" was published in Amplified (Melville House Publishing), a collection of fiction by fifteen prominent performing songwriters. Smither's thirteenth CD Time Stands Still was released on September 29, 2009, on Signature Sounds.[12] On this, his most stripped down recording in some time, Smither worked with just two accompanists after the same trio had played a rare band performance – a non-solo setup required to play a Netherlands festival. About the recording Smither says, "We're the only three guys on this record, and most of the songs only have three parts going on. We had a freewheeling feeling at that festival gig, and we managed to make a lot of that same feeling happen in this record."[citation needed]
On February 8, 2011, Smither was profiled in The New York Times "Frequent Flier" column,[13] entitled, "The Drawbacks of a Modest Celebrity," in which he recounts anecdotes from his four decades as a traveling musician.
Always wanting to treat his fans well, in 2011 Smither put out two fan projects: a collection of live tracks from newly discovered concert recordings from the 1980s–1990s titled Lost and Found and the rollicking EP, What I Learned in School, on which Smither covered six classic rock and roll songs. Smither followed these fan-projects with Hundred Dollar Valentine (2012), a studio record rated with five stars by the magazine MOJO. With longtime producer David "Goody" Goodrich at the helm, this collection sported the unmistakable sound Smither has made his trademark: fingerpicked acoustic guitar and evocative sonic textures meshed with spare, brilliant songs, delivered in a bone-wise, hard-won voice. American Songwriter magazine published Smither's blog about making his first record of all original material in his four-decade career.[14]
In 2014, Chris Smither marked fifty years of songwriting with the release of Still on the Levee – a double-CD retrospective. Recorded in New Orleans at the Music Shed, this career-spanning project features fresh new takes on 24 iconic songs from his vast career – including "Devil Got Your Man," the first song he penned, on up to several of his most recent originals. The band included Billy Conway on drums. Coming out at the same time as Still on the Levee, the book Chris Smither Lyrics 1966–2012 features his complete set of lyrics complemented by select images and performance memorabilia from his decades-long career. To commemorate his career to-date, on September 30, 2014, Signature Sounds released an all-star tribute record (Link of Chain: A Songwriters' Tribute to Chris Smither) including a list of artists offering their takes on some Smither favorites including Josh Ritter, Bonnie Raitt, Loudon Wainwright III, Dave Alvin, Peter Case, Tim O'Brien, and Patty Larkin.
The 2018 release Call Me Lucky also included Conway on drums.
In pop culture
Several of author Linda Barnes’ books make reference to Chris Smither.[4]
Keys to Tetuan by Israeli novelist Moshe Benarroch uses a line from Smither's song "I Am The Ride" on the opening page.
Discography
Albums
- 1970 – I'm a Stranger Too!
- 1971 – Don't It Drag On
- 1984 – It Ain't Easy
- 1991 – Another Way to Find You
- 1993 – Happier Blue
- 1995 – Up on the Lowdown
- 1997 – Small Revelations
- 1999 – Drive You Home Again
- 2000 – Live as I'll Ever Be
- 2003 – Train Home
- 2005 – Honeysuckle Dog (recorded in 1973)
- 2006 – Leave the Light On
- 2009 – Time Stands Still
- 2011 – Lost and Found
- 2012 – Hundred Dollar Valentine
- 2014 – Still on the Levee
- 2018 – Call Me Lucky
- 2020 – More From The Levee[15]
Live recordings
- Stuck in Amber, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania (1985)
- Chris Smither Live at McCabe's Guitar Shop 3/14/03 (2003)
Compilation albums
- Blues Live From Mountain Stage (The Devil's Real) (1995)
- Avalon Blues: A Tribute to the Music of Mississippi John Hurt (Frankie and Albert) (2001)
- Raise the Roof – A Retrospective (Winsome Smile) (2004)
- Various – 89.3 The Current by Minnesota Public Radio (Train Home) (2005)
- A Case for Case: A Tribute to the Songs of Peter Case (Cold Trail Blues) (2006)
- Tales from the Tavern, Vol.1 (Train Home) (2006)
- True Folk (Step It Up and Go with Jorma Kaukonen) (2006)
References
- ^ ISBN 0-85112-673-1.
- ^ a b c "William J. Smither (obituary)". New Orleans Times-Picayune. November 29, 2007. Retrieved December 26, 2021.
- ^ "Chris Smither (p.3)". Puremusic.com. Retrieved July 11, 2014.
- ^ a b c d e f "Chris Smither". Archived from the original on July 7, 2011. Retrieved December 30, 2010.
- ^ "Chris Smither Bio | Chris Smither Career | MTV". Cmt.com. Retrieved July 11, 2014.
- ^ [1] Archived June 11, 2008, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Boston Globe: February 22, 1992, by Steve Morse
- ^ a b "Chris Smithers has no regrets". Archived from the original on June 11, 2008. Retrieved April 7, 2008.
- ISBN 0-87023-925-2. (pp 276–277)
- ^ "Minor 7th Interviews Chris Smither". Minor7th.com. May 1, 2003. Retrieved July 11, 2014.
- ^ "Web2 Full Record". Search1.clevnet.org. Archived from the original on June 11, 2008. Retrieved July 11, 2014.
- ^ "New CD Available Exclusively Online NOW! | Chris Smither". Archived from the original on September 15, 2009. Retrieved September 6, 2009.
- ^ Chris Smither. "The Drawbacks of a Modest Celebrity". The New York Times. Retrieved July 11, 2014.
- ^ "Guest Blog: Chris Smither". American Songwriter. Archived from the original on June 21, 2012. Retrieved June 20, 2012.
- ^ "Chris Smither | Album Discography". AllMusic. Retrieved March 10, 2021.