The more I listen to Chris Smither, the more I like his music.
\nNo, wait, scratch that. The more I listen to Chris Smither, the
\nmore I
\nlove<\/i> his music.<\/p>\n
If you thought that Smither’s last studio release,
\nDrive You Home Again<\/i>, was a show-stopper, then you’ve never
\nheard Smither where he’s the most comfortable – and that’s on a
\nstage. His first live recording,
\nLive As I’ll Ever Be<\/i>, is the next best thing to being in the
\nfront row at your local watering hole, listening to Smither pull
\nnotes out of his guitar that make it sound like more than one
\nperson playing and watching his foot stamp out the rhythm of the
\nsong.<\/p>\n
Smither is an amazing songwriter and musician, something that
\nwas proven to me on
\nDrive You Home Again<\/i>. But
\nLive As I’ll Ever Be<\/i> just hammers the point home with such
\nincredible force. Tracks like “Hold On I,” “Link Of Chain,”
\n“Winsome Smile” and his absolutely killer cover of Robert Johnson’s
\n“Dust My Broom” make it obvious that this guy should be an absolute
\nsuperstar. His voice is as rich as a fine whiskey, with enough
\nrough edges to prove he’s lived the life he sings about in some of
\nhis songs. And his guitar playing? If I didn’t know better, I’d
\nhave sworn he had a backing guitarist filling in some of the notes.
\nBut this disc (recorded around the country and in Ireland over the
\nlast few years) is all Smither — and we should drop to our knees
\nin thanks.<\/p>\n
If there’s any complaint I have with this disc, it’s that it
\nalmost seems to be too rich; sometimes, listening to the entire
\ndisc in one sitting is like eating the whole chocolate cake while
\nbarely stopping to breathe. Let this disc be your guilty pleasure;
\nat least you don’t have to hit the treadmill after listening to
\nit.<\/p>\n
Smither even manages to bring life into a song I thought needed
\na little trimming off
\nDrive You Home Again<\/i> — namely, “No Love Today.” His
\nexplanation about the root of a part of the song actually made me
\nunderstand why he used the New Orleans horns on the studio version
\nof the song. (Actually, I take my last comment back — my only
\ncomplaint with this disc is that I honestly wish there had been
\nmore examples of Smither telling the audience a little history
\nabout the songs.<\/p>\n
So why isn’t Smither a superstar, besides the fact that
\nwell-written, well-played folk music isn’t something the kids can
\nslam dance to? I don’t know, but I do know that if there were any
\njustice in this world, Smither would be as acclaimed a songwriter
\nand musician as someone like Bob Dylan.<\/p>\n
\nLive As I’ll Ever Be<\/i> is a disc that does the unthinkable —
\nit tops a disc which was just as good. Smither deserves a far
\nbetter fate than to be folk music’s best kept secret — and this
\ndisc is just the megaphone he needs to get his messages across.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25515,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[6387],"rating":[5646],"class_list":["post-36721","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-chris-smither","rating-rating-a"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36721","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36721"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36721\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25515"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36721"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=36721"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=36721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}