FEATURE REVIEW
Smithering the Blues
by Seth Rogovoy(WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass., Jan. 19, 1997) -- The first thing that grabs you upon hearing Chris Smither is the voice -- impossibly deep, impenetrably knowing, and sparklingly resonant of the many miles he has traveled, both literally and figuratively. It is the voice of the hard-bitten bluesman and the sensitive soul-searcher both at once, and it is that dichotomy which makes Smither the uniquely talented and compelling performer that he is today.
You can hear traces of Smither's New Orleans upbringing in the jazzy way he swings his phrases across the beat and in rootsy touches like the tuba-driven rag, "Hook Line and Sinker," on his latest album, "Small Revelations" (Hightone Records).
You can hear his lifelong love affair with the blues -- particularly with guitarists Lightnin' Hopkins and Mississipi John Hurt -- in the sophisticated, rhythmic finger-picking on many of his own compositions as well as on the covers of traditional blues tunes he puts on each of his albums. (Robert Johnson and Brownie McGhee get Smithered on "Small Revelations.")
And in his lyrics, you can hear the sum total of life's learned lessons from this would-be anthropologist turned folk-blues singer who hung with the likes of Eric Von Schmidt and Spider John Koerner on the Cambridge coffeehouse scene of the mid-'60s. A young redhead named Bonnie Raitt was also part of that scene, and the connection paid artistic and commercial dividends for the budding songwriter when years later two of Smither's songs, "Love You Like a Man" and "I Feel the Same," would become staples of Raitt's repertoire.
In some of his darker, minor-key tunes, you can hear echoes of an inner darkness that plagued Smither throughout a lost decade or so traversing the '70s and '80s, when alcohol stole Smither's muse and carpentry replaced music as his chosen profession.
But you can also hear the voice of the survivor, the man who came back from that dark place to record a series of critically-acclaimed albums beginning with 1991's "Another Way to Find You" through "Happier Blue" -- which won the NAIRD award as Best Folk Recording of 1993 -- and "Up on the Lowdown" (1995), on the way to this year's "Small Revelations," recorded in Austin, Texas, and boasting an eclectic mix of roots-rockers, blues and ballads, including the meditative, prayer-like "Cave Man" featured in this issue's CD.
On the title track of his new album, Smither sings, "Passion is feeling in motion." It's a simple truth, but it just might harbor the secret of what makes Smither's music -- rich in feeling and motion -- so vital. In the same song, he warns, "Beware of cheap imitations." With a thousand singer/songwriters vying to be heard, that's good advice, too. But make no mistake -- Smither is no imitation. He's the genuine article.
[This article originally appeared in LEAK CD Magazine's Winter 1997 issue. Copyright Seth Rogovoy 1997. All rights reserved.]
Seth Rogovoy
rogovoy@berkshire.net
music news, interviews, reviews, et al.
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