Originally from Devon, English singer-songwriter John Smith got his start playing bars and clubs in Liverpool, both with his own songs and as a side player for artists like Lianne La Havas, Lisa Hannigan, and David Gray. Growing up with folk music and guitar music influences from Eric Clapton to Maria Callas to Nick Drake, John’s sensitivity as a player is one of the cornerstones of his music, especially when it comes to his live music. It’s earned him a passionate fanbase ever since his first EP release in 2009.
Host Lizzie No got to witness the connection he shares with audiences on a recent month-long tour around the UK. Everywhere they went together, audience members had stories of how important John’s songs were to them and guitar nerds flocked to have a look at his pedal board.
Beyond his musicianship, John’s music is imbued with an earnestness that invites listeners to look around and feel gratitude: for nature (especially the vistas of rural England), for the wisdom that memory can provide, and for the people close to us. His latest album, The Living Kind, is a meditation on how delicate love and life can be, but also how enduring. It also showcases the creative partnership between Smith and his longtime friend and roots music industry icon, Joe Henry. One of the album’s highlights is “Milestones,” in which John reflects on how parenthood has changed his perspective on the artist’s life.
His name might be a little … beige? But those who know John Smith have long loved the vibrant colors of this gifted guitarist and singer-songwriter’s creative palate – especially the serene sophistication at its core. A unique form of meditative propulsion has endeared Smith to heavyweight collaborators like 3-time Grammy winner Joe Henry and his own fans alike, but with his new album, The Living Kind, Smith paints with a new shade of calm, confident, consciousnesses.
Produced by Henry and driven by Smith’s steamroller of a right hand, The Living Kind seems to have a gravity of its own making – a contemporary folk album that is both spartan and lush, modern and timeless, desolate and dense with the movement of life.
Perhaps that’s due to the subject matter, since it was written as Smith grappled with a season of change and an Alzheimer’s diagnosis that impacted not just his father, but the whole family. Or maybe it came down to the recording style, which found the UK native escaping to Maine with a few vintage guitars in the dead of winter, finding new courage in Henry’s home studio. But no matter the reason, the result is a work of deep reflection – and ultimately deep revelation.
Just after The Living Kind’s release, BGS spoke with Smith about the mix of experiences that led to his cathartic new album, a project that helps convey the beautiful tragedy of living itself.
Thank you for making some time for us to connect, John. To start, I just wonder how you’re feeling about the act of making music these days?
John Smith: I mean, I love music. Music is the good bit. I feel like music is the bit I do for free. The music business itself is tough. It’s in a strange place at the moment and everyone I know is working five times harder for half the money. So I feel that going on tour and playing shows cannot be taken for granted, especially since that moment where it all shut down. It feels like a real privilege to be able to go and do live shows. To make this record with my favorite producer was just a dream come true. The whole thing feels completely satisfying and good to me.
Tell me a little about where these songs came from. I understand they came in sort of a creative burst and you had a lot of tumultuous things going on in life at the time before that. Did this music have an impact on you personally – were you using it to process?
I think the album before [2021’s The Fray] was all about that. It was me writing so I didn’t lose my mind. This album feels more about moving through turmoil and looking behind you, looking at the rear view mirror and seeing a part of your life fade into the distance and recognizing it and keeping your eye on the road ahead. I wrote this as I was emerging from a time of tremendous – well, yeah, I say turmoil again, and the songs came very quickly. Once Joe and I had decided to make a record together, I wrote the songs over the course of the winter of 2022 into ‘23, wrote most of the record in about six weeks.
That’s crazy.
I think the thing is, when you’re writing and you put up your aerial, sometimes you catch a good frequency, you get lucky, and you catch something that falls into your lap.
I noticed that you described this project as an actual song cycle, which is not always so common anymore. What’s the story you feel these songs are really taking people through?
Actually, I think that was a journalist who said that, and it kind of hit me that it was not entirely untrue. The album moves through a series of different moods. It starts in a place of despair with “Candle” – a song about Alzheimer’s and looking after someone and feeling burned out. And it ends with this song “Lily,” which is a kind of evergreen love song about hope and being able to get through something, because you’ve got someone to do it with. And I think the album takes you through various situations of grief and longing and love and hope, and then it ends in a very hopeful place.
You mentioned earlier, “Watching the person you were get left behind.” I mean, is that a scary feeling at this point in life?
Yeah, I think I never seem to have any say in it. Things happen and I move around them. What I’m learning as I get older is just to be more malleable, be more subtle. There’s a line in “The World Turns:” “We’ll be stronger if we soften and yield,” and that’s kind of what I learned over the course of the last five years. I was always someone who would attempt to resist the flow, but I’ve learned that just jumping in and seeing if you don’t drown is probably the best way.
I did want to ask you where your sound is landing on this record. It’s got this very peaceful, but sort of propulsive feeling and it puts me in a good place. I like it a lot. I wonder, does that energy show up in your daily life, or were you sort of getting out of yourself to find this mix of calming but also pushing forward?
That’s a really good question. It’s almost as if you’ve done this before. [Laughs] That’s really good, man. I never thought of that. …
Well, I’m a calm person, but I’m always moving. I’m always thinking of the next thing and always planning and always on it, but I’m generally very calm, and maybe that’s a reflection of me. When I went in, I wanted to record something that sounded like me, but also sounded idiosyncratic to this one recording process.
Most of these songs are driven by the right hand. It’s that propulsive groovy right-hand thing that I do, and I’ve been working on my whole life, really. That is at the center of the mix, and Joe wanted to frame that, then just have other actors walk out onto the stage, do their bit, and then walk off. We wanted to put that front-and-center instead of me being part of the ensemble.
Do you think that’s maybe part of why this one was so satisfying feeling?
I think so. I think that’s largely down to Joe and his recording process. He just put a mic up and asks you to play a song. This felt like the record I’ve been trying to make my whole career, just sometimes you need a beautifully gifted Grammy-winning producer to help you get there.
Fortunately, I’ve played on lots of Joe’s records. I’ve played on four or five of his solo records and a bunch of his productions, so I’m used to that way of working – and as soon as I saw him do it the first time like 13 years ago, I just said, “Right, that’s how I want to record.”
He’s always been very encouraging of me, and tried to get me to do my thing without inhibition. And there was a moment when I was singing the song “Silver Mine.” He looked over and he just kind of winked at me and said, “You’ve done it now, son. You’ve done it.” And it was like, “Yeah, I have actually done it. I’ve managed to sing without inhibition on a record,” which I don’t think I’d ever really done before.
How did the setting of Maine – in the winter – impact what you made?
Well, the idea for the album was born there a year previous. I was on tour in New England in February ’22 and then Joe and I wrote this song early after dinner, went upstairs, made a demo, and then Joe just said to me, “There’s no reason why we shouldn’t make a record here in this house.” And so a year later, I was back there and it was the same icy, snowy, frozen situation from the last February, and I’d had it in mind the whole time I was writing. … I always had those frozen finger lakes where he lives in mind.
So, when I went back, it was exactly as I’d remembered it. The songs suited the place, they suited the setting and the weather, and then it happened. On the second day, the temperature plummeted to -25º Celsius. So we just stayed in, man. We stayed in the house. We looked out the window and we cut the record in four days. It brings a closeness that you can’t manufacture. You can hear that on the record.
Tell me about where “Candle” came from. This is the track that starts the record off, and I know it’s kind of a heavy topic, right?
It is a bit heavy. It’s a song about admitting that something is very wrong and that you have to deal with it, and you have to try not to burn out. In this case, my father suffers from Alzheimer’s. We chose to completely change our lives to move around him and his condition and look after him, and it’s a song about that. I felt there was no point in dressing it up and trying to speak of it in broader strokes, because I know a lot of folk whose parents are suffering dementia of some kind. So I just decided, let’s be straight up about it.
Obviously, the visual metaphor is a candle burning out. You, as a carer, will burn out. But actually, I think really the song is about putting your hands around the candle and trying to just stay warm, enjoy that light as long as you can. The relationship with somebody who has Alzheimer’s just changes every day.
You chose “The Living Kind” as the title track. Why did you feel that was the best way to describe the record?
I don’t know, actually. It’s a bit of an anomaly because it’s such an upbeat song. The record isn’t all that upbeat. … I guess I thought “The Living Kind” sums it up. Rather than becoming complacent in the face of great difficulty or becoming stunned into inaction, it’s about getting on with it and trying to live life as best you can. I think that is what a lot of the record is about.
What do you hope people take away from this?
I just hope it makes listeners feel good. I think at the end of the day, that’s all I can hope for. I believe Bob Dylan when he said that once you release music, it is not your business what people think of it. I hope it makes ‘em feel good.
This collection of albums is not simply a “best of” 2021. That would be selling every single collection included herein far too short. These roots and roots-adjacent releases each stood as a testament to the music makers and communities that spawned them. Not simply in the face of a globe-halting, existentially challenging pandemic, but in the face of an industry, government, and culture that would just as soon have all of us pretend the last two years — and beyond — simply didn’t happen.
These artists and creators refused to let the pandemic define their artistic output through it, while simultaneously acknowledging, processing, and healing from the pandemic through this music. Not a single album below is a “pandemic record,” yet every single one is a resounding, joyful balm because the intention in each is not simply a reaction to a global disaster or an attempt to commodify it or its by-products. Not a single one is an attempt to “return to normalcy.” They’re each challenging us as listeners, in both overt and subtle ways, to walk into our collective new reality together, wide-eyed and open-armed, and with intention.
Daddy’s Country Gold, Melissa Carper
It was a sly move on Melissa Carper’s part to give her album, Daddy’s Country Gold, a title that works on so many levels, nodding to the passing down of sounds, to her road nickname and to her ability to casually loosen postwar country perceptions of masculinity and femininity. In her songs and performances, her gestures are even more beguilingly subtle. Enlisting a fellow upright bassist to produce with her, the Time Jumpers’ Dennis Crouch, Carper claimed western swing and early honky-tonk eras as her playground, and the shrewd, crooning intimacy of Billie Holiday as her guide. Carper sings in a slight, reedy rasp, deftly phrasing her lines and curling her words to suggest the lasting nature of longing and fleeting nature of pleasure. She’s written a movingly clever ballad of broken commitment (“My Old Chevy Van”), elegantly pining tunes of both torchy and down-home varieties (“I Almost Forgot About You,” “It’s Better If You Never Know”) and whimsical fantasies of rural homesteading, sometimes making clear that she’s cast a female partner in those stories (“Old Fashioned Gal,” “Would You Like to Get Some Goats?”) Her artful knowledgeable nudging of tradition is a revelation. — Jewly Hight
Music City USA, Charley Crockett
Few artists in the last few years have us as fired up as Charley Crockett. His unapologetically individual sound and aesthetic shine through once again on his 2021 release, Music City USA. The irony, of course, is that the album sounds nothing like most of what comes out of modern-day Nashville. It’s an amalgamation of influences both old and new — blues and classic country and soul with a peppering of Texas-tinged Americana on top. Charley Crockett absolutely represents what the future of Music City sounds (and looks) like in our book. — Amy Reitnouer Jacobs
Home Video, Lucy Dacus
We must forgo the existential “Is it roots?” question at this juncture, simply because this stunning and resplendent work by Lucy Dacus refused to be excluded from this list. Perhaps the superlative album of 2021, in a year filled to bursting with objectively and subjectively superlative albums, Home Video is impossibly resonant, relatable, down-to-earth, and touching — despite its intricate specificity and deeply vulnerable personality. Dacus’ queerness, and the beautiful, humane ways it refuses categorization and labels, is the crack beneath the door through which the light of this gorgeous, fully-realized universe is let into our hearts. Her post-evangelical pondering; the challenging while awe-inspiring abstract, amorphous gray zones she doesn’t just examine, but celebrates; the anger of rock and roll paired with the tenderness of folk and the spilled ink of singer-songwriters — whether taken as a masterpiece of genre-fluid postmodernity or an experiment on the fringes of roots music, Dacus’ Home Video establishes this ineffable artist as a subtle, intellect-defying (and -encouraging), empathetic genius of our time. — Justin Hiltner
My Bluegrass Heart, Béla Fleck
It’s been over twenty years since the eminent master of the banjo, Béla Fleck, recorded a bluegrass record. My Bluegrass Heart completes a trilogy of albums (following 1988’s Drive and 1999’s The Bluegrass Sessions) and is as much a who’s who of modern bluegrass – featuring the likes of Billy Strings, Chris Thile, Sierra Hull, Bryan Sutton, Molly Tuttle, Michael Cleveland, Sam Bush and many others – as it is a showcase of Fleck’s still-virtuoso level talent.
But as much as My Bluegrass Heart is an album for a bluegrass band, we would be hard pressed to call it a bluegrass album (in the best possible way). As he has done countless times before, Fleck effectively breaks every rule and pushes every boundary by surrounding himself with fellow legendary rule breakers, creating something wholly beautiful and unique in the process. — Amy Reitnouer Jacobs
A Tribute to Bill Monroe, The Infamous Stringdusters
Bluegrass loves a “back to bluegrass” album, no matter how far an artist or band may or may not have traveled from bluegrass before coming back to it. On A Tribute to Bill Monroe, the Infamous Stringdusters cement ‘80s and ‘90s ‘grass – “mash” and its subsidiaries – as an ancestor to the current generation of jamgrass. Or, at the very least, it cements that these two modern forms of bluegrass cooperatively evolved. It’s crisp, driving, bouncing bluegrass that’s as much traditional as it isn’t. Sounds like quintessential Stringdusters, doesn’t it? Their collective and individual personalities ooze through the Big Mon’s material, which is what we all want cover projects to do, in the end: Cast classics in a new light, into impossibly complicated refractions. And, in this case, infusing postgrass sensibilities back into the bluegrass forms that birthed them. — Justin Hiltner
Race Records, Miko Marks & the Resurrectors
One of the best bluegrass albums of the year most likely would not be “binned” as bluegrass, and that this album is titled Race Records demonstrates exactly why. Miko Marks returns to the primordial ooze aesthetic of country, old-time, blues and bluegrass — without a whiff of essentialism — and accomplishes a Bristol Sessions or ‘40s-era Grand Ole Opry sound that’s as firmly anchored in the present as it is elemental. Marks’ musical perspective has always highlighted her awareness that the death of genre, as it were, is nothing new, but a return to the traditions that birthed all of these roots genres, many of which can be attributed to the exact communities race records originally sought to erase. Marks & the Resurrectors joyfully and radically occupy songs and space on Race Records. The result is as light and carefree as it is profound; it’s devastatingly singular yet feels like a sing along. All quintessential elements of bluegrass and country. — Justin Hiltner
Dark in Here, Mountain Goats
John Darnielle sings at the velocity of a firehose torrent, and he writes songs with titles like “Let Me Bathe in Demonic Light” and “The Destruction of the Superdeep Kola Borehole Tower.” But rather than death metal, Mountain Goats play elegantly arranged folk-rock dressed up with saxophones and the occasional keyboard freak-out. Dark in Here, the best of five Mountain Goats albums released the past two years, coheres into tunefulness despite the clashing contrasts — especially “Mobile,” a gently gliding Biblical meditation on hurricane season, and also Darnielle’s prettiest song ever. Perfect for the whiplash jitters of this modern life. — David Menconi
In Defense Of My Own Happiness, Joy Oladokun
I don’t know if I’ve ever been so immediately captivated by an artist as I was when I first heard Joy Oladokun’s single, “Jordan,” earlier this year. On that song — and every other one on In Defense of My Own Happiness that I played over and over this year — her clear voice and searingly personal lyrics emerge as a calm, universal call to pursue something better, melting down her own painful past and re-molding it in the image of self-love, inner peace and … well, joy. Oladokun is indeed building her own promised land, and we’re all lucky to bear witness. — Dacey Orr Sivewright
Outside Child, Allison Russell
One might assume an album covering the subject of abuse could intimidate a listener with its potential heaviness. While Outside Child does indeed venture into the depths of those dark experiences, Allison Russell gleans profound lessons learned and treasures discovered from each and every detail of her experiences in her youth. The result is ethereal and uplifting — and a release of trauma through a bright musical experience swelling and overflowing with hope for the future. — Shelby Williamson
The Fray, John Smith
Most artists are pretty keen to play down the idea of a “lockdown record,” because they’re worried it will limit the music’s appeal or longevity. But the emotions John Smith pours into The Fray — born of that period when we were all taking stock of our lives, and wondering what to do next — will hold their currency for a long while yet. It’s honest, yes, but also pretty soothing on the ear, showcasing Smith’s fullest sound to date — both heart’s cry and soul’s balm at once. — Emma John
See You Next Time, Joshua Ray Walker
I wasn’t out after “Three Strikes.” Instead, I was all in. With the steel guitar weaving like a drunkard in a Buick, it sometimes seems like this Dallas musician’s third album is about to go off the rails, along with the lives of the people he’s created in these songs. It never does, though, and that’s a credit to Joshua Ray Walker’s commanding vocal and a willingness to bring his dry sense of humor to the country music landscape. From the pretty poser in “Cowboy” to the unsightly barfly known as “Welfare Chet,” these folks feel like true honky-tonk characters. — Craig Shelburne
Simple Syrup, Sunny War
“Tell me that I look like Nina,” sings Los Angeles singer-songwriter Sunny War in “Like Nina,” the keystone song of her fourth album, Simple Syrup. The Nina in question is, of course, Nina Simone. The look is the “same sad look in my eyes,” though in concert War often flashes a bright, disarmingly shy smile — that of a young Black artist demanding to be taken on her own, singular terms, not the terms of cultural expectations. She continues: She can’t dance like Tina, sing like Aretha, be styled like Beyoncé. But she can see injustice, seek love and respect, seek a sense of self, and sing about it, captivatingly, with her earthy voice and folk-blues-rooted fingerpicking, enhanced by a small cadre of friends led by producer Harlan Steinberger. Like Nina? No. Like Sunny War. — Steve Hochman
Sixteen Kings’ Daughters, Libby Weitnauer
There’s a new artist on the folk scene — Libby Weitnauer. Weitnauer is a fiddle player, violinist, singer and songwriter raised in East Tennessee and currently based in Nashville. Her debut EP and first solo effort, Sixteen Kings’ Daughters, was produced by Mike Robinson (Sarah Jarosz, Railroad Earth) and presents centuries-old Appalachian ballads that have been recast into a lush and unsettling sonic landscape. Weitnauer’s high lilting voice is reminiscent of Jean Ritchie, and she glides with ease atop eerie backdrops of electric guitar, bass, fiddle and pedal steel. A strong debut to say the least, and we’re excited to hear more. — Kaïa Kater
Urban Driftwood, Yasmin Williams
Watching Yasmin Williams play guitar can boggle your mind. She uses her full body to coax noise from the instrument, her fingers pounding on the strings, her feet clicking out counter rhythms in tap shoes, one hand even accompanying herself on kalimba. As impressive as her technique is, it’s less remarkable than her facility for compositions that are melodically direct yet structurally intricate. Urban Driftwood is a carefully and beautifully written album, and Williams’ songs lose none of their flair when she transfers them from the stage to the studio. Dense with earworm riffs and evocative textures, the album represents a crucial pivot away from the increasingly staid world of folk guitar, which has recently been dominated by white men indebted to the historical American Primitivism pioneered by John Fahey. Williams is opening that world up to new sounds and influences, insisting that her guitar can speak about our present moment in ways that are meaningful, moving, and subversive. — Stephen Deusner
Welcome to the BGS Radio Hour! Since 2017, the Radio Hour has been our weekly recap of all the great music, new and old, featured on the pages of BGS. This week, we’ve got music from CeeLo Green to Loretta Lynn! Remember to check back every week for a new episode.
Loretta Lynn’s original cut of this song made it to No. 1 on the charts in 1971. When Margo Price teamed up with Lynn to celebrate the latter’s 50th anniversary of “Coal Miner’s Daughter,” Price chose this song specifically, suggesting how legendary it was for Lynn to have sung about women’s rights and birth control in the country music of the ’70s. It’s still legendary today.
“Turn me loose, I’ll never be the same!” is a phrase that rodeo cowboys used to yell when they were ready – something Snider first heard from Jerry Jeff Walker, but fitting himself perfectly. He asked the cosmos to provide a rock to put is foot on, and so the story goes, the new album from Todd Snider: First Agnostic Church of Hope and Wonder.
From Grand Rapids, Michigan, DL Rossi brings us a song from his upcoming album, Lonesome Kind. It’s a kind of youthful innocence, warming up to the harsher realities of life. And while we can’t opt out of our hurtful experiences, as Rossi suggests, we can share them to encourage one another.
North Carolina-based singer and songwriter Aaron Burdett compiled this song by noting quotes that his friend Arlo would say, collecting them for over 10 years. Arlo isn’t necessarily the character in the song, Burdett says, but a character, someone who always has a bold thing to say.
CeeLo Green brings us a video for “Slow Down” from his latest album, CeeLo Green is… Thomas Calloway. From the writing of the song, to the recording and then making of the video, it was a completely expressive process for Green, who called it an “out of body experience.” Ironically titled, the song pulls the listener even closer into the climactic height of the record.
Driving through the rural Mojave, D-Napoleon passed a sign that read “Gasoline and Liquor.” While she knew it would be a song, she thought it sounded like a man’s song, one written via passing lines back and forth with her husband. The video reflects the landscape of the “Wild Wests” of both the American desert and Western Australia, the places between which this artist splits her time.
Danny Paisley is the current reigning prince of Baltimore-D.C.-area bluegrass, a scene with rich history dating back to the 1950s. This week, Paisley and his band the Southern Grass bring us a song from their upcoming release, Bluegrass Troubadour.
Aoife O’Donovan is no stranger here at BGS, or anywhere in the roots community for that matter! Her work with artists like Crooked Still, I’m With Her, and the Goat Rodeo Sessions proves why that is. This week on BGS, she teams up with Scottish artist Kris Drever to bring us a message that we’ll all be together again.
BGS caught up with Brigitte DeMeyer from San Francisco this week on a 5+5 – that is, 5 questions, 5 songs. We talked musical inspirations, songwriting techniques, and her mission statement: being herself.
For Boston-based Will Orchard, this song is about trusting impulses, and the constant questioning of whether or not those feelings are valid. Written on tour in two parts separated by almost year, Orchard was able to combine them with the perspective of time, earning a place on his newly released album, I Reached My Hand Out.
Helena Rose wrote this song while struggling to tell a loved one how she felt about their addiction. Rose offers this song to others who have loved ones battling addiction, giving hope to the struggle, and showing that there is a light at the end of the tunnel.
As March has slipped away and we welcome April, we bid farewell to our March Artist of the Month, Valerie June. This song comes from her latest album, The Moon and the Stars: Prescriptions for Dreamers.
In celebration of his latest album, A Celebration, we caught up with the Bones of J.R. Jones for a 5+5, talking about performance memories, art forms, and songwriting techniques. Jones’ curated playlist brings us everything from Nina Simone to Bruce Springsteen to the White Stripes.
The pandemic was hard on us all, no doubt, but for Wales-based John Smith, it just kept bringing the punches. Trying to make sense of it all, Smith brings us The Fray, his latest album in a 15-year career, teaming up with artists and friends like Sarah Jarosz and Bill Frisell.
Photos: (L to R) Margo Price by Bobbi Rich; Aoife O’Donovan by Rich Gilligan; Todd Snider by Stacie Huckeba
John Smith is resilient. You have to be, when you’ve spent your 15-year musical career — by choice — unsigned to a record label. When you’ve arranged every gig, every tour, every album release yourself. When you’ve invested your own money in everything you’ve done. As Smith himself puts it he’s been “planning for the worst” his entire professional life.
So when catastrophe hit a year ago, he was ready, in his words, to roll with the punches. The pandemic had already necessitated the painstaking and anxiety-inducing cancellation of all his gigs and tours. His mother was diagnosed with cancer at a time he couldn’t visit her. His wife lost a pregnancy. “It was devastating,” says Smith, from his home in North Wales. “But all you can do is try and make sense of it and the way I do that is write songs.”
The result is The Fray, an album of searing honesty and lithe beauty whose songs amplify the emotions and experiences of so many of us this year — the reassessed relationships, the self-reflection, and the ultimate search for hope. It is, perhaps, something of a change of pace for the British singer-songwriter, who describes it as his most honest album yet.
“In the past I’ve been drawn towards mythic perspective and character-based songs and more fantastical references,” he nods. “This one I just wrote about me and what I was feeling.” In doing so, he has created a work of extraordinary emotional nuance. As he puts it: “There’s lots of color and dark and light in everyday life. ‘How do I get to bed tonight without cracking up?’”
The songs are deeply tender — “She’s Doing Fine” and “One Day at a Time” are poignant responses to the grief of losing a baby — but they’re not as spare as Smith’s 2019 folk record, Hummingbird. This one is a cashmere blend of guitar, piano and horns, with eloquent contributions from friends in the US and elsewhere. Sarah Jarosz and Courtney Hartman lend their ethereal voices to “Deserving” and “Eye to Eye,” respectively. Milk Carton Kids contribute, alongside Smith’s longtime collaborator Lisa Hannigan, to the rousing title track “The Fray,” which tips the hat to the West Coast stylings of Jackson Browne’s Late for the Sky, one of Smith’s favorite records.
For Smith, it was a delight to be able to sing and play with his friends, even if they couldn’t be in the same space. “I normally see Lisa, for instance, very often, and I haven’t seen her for a year. So in the absence of being backstage at the same festivals, drinking and laughing, I thought let’s all get on the same track, then it’s like we’ve all seen each other.”
It had been six months since he had played with anyone else at all. When the pandemic first began to spread, Smith was touring in Australia, about to play the Blue Mountain Festival near Sydney. “I woke up in my hotel room to a text saying that the festival had been cancelled,” says Smith. “I looked at local news reports and it was obvious everything was going to get pulled and they were shutting down the borders between Australian states — it was just time to get out of there.”
Having got himself home from literally the other side of the world, Smith undertook the soul-crushing work of cancelling all his gigs, including what would have been his first-ever headline tour in the US. “It had taken years to get to that point,” he adds, ruefully. But managing his own brand has made Smith resourceful and he quickly worked together an album of unreleased recordings (Live in Chester) and took them on a “virtual world tour,” playing dates in different time zones.
“That all went really well and after the last of those gigs, that evening, my wife started feeling really bad and we had to get her to hospital and she spent a week there. And within a few weeks of that I’d found out my mum had cancer. So suddenly everything in my life was upside down.”
New songs simply fell out of him, he says. Some came from ideas he’d worked up with others, such as the opening track, “Friends.” The chorus had been written with fellow singer-songwriter Paul Usher, before the UK went into lockdown; four months later, it found a new meaning. “When I sat down and listened back to the voice memo on my phone I started singing it and wrote all the verses in one go.”
Other songs were inspired by particular instruments. He bought a classical guitar and quickly wrote “She’s Doing Fine” on it. A ‘57 Telecaster replica he acquired — “just a piece of swamp ash with a neck on it really” — inspired a riff which stayed under his fingers for five weeks before it was followed with any words. The finished product was “Hold On.”
Britain’s strict lockdown laws, which have included stay-at-home orders with only an hour a day allowed for exercise, were partially lifted in the late summer and fall, giving Smith the opportunity to get inside a studio. He and Hummingbird producer Sam Lakeman both isolated ahead of the session, and so were able to work together freely and without masks. The other musicians, too, self-quarantined before they arrived: “We didn’t have anyone involved we didn’t trust completely,” he says.
Smith laid down his own tracks in the first couple of days — the bare bones of guitar and vocals — so that the sound could build organically with each additional contribution. “Since recording all together live logistically wasn’t possible, I had to take a slightly different route,” he says. “We went with a lot of first takes and kept a few mistakes in there and tried to allow it to breathe spontaneously and didn’t overthink it… I’ve been guilty of that in the past.”
There’s a lovely moment at the end of “Friends,” as the song finishes and is punctuated with a little applause. It feels, for just a brief moment, like you’re in the room with the band. Smith laughs and explains its origins: “I’d put down the vocal take and it sounded so good in the headphones I just started clapping. And Sam shot me a look as if to say: ‘You know we’re going to have to do that again now.’” But it was such a joyful and spontaneous sound, they decided instead to ask the other musicians to clap at the end of their takes, too.
The other contributions — from Hannigan, Jarosz, et al. — were recorded at their homes and sent in digitally (“You can catch a lot of horrible stuff over email,” smiles Smith, “but not COVID”). They include electric guitar from Bill Frisell, one of Smith’s heroes, whom he approached via their mutual friend, Joe Henry. It is clear, from Smith’s tone, that having Frisell play on “Best of Me” is one of the best things to have happened to him in a very long time.
The future remains as uncertain as ever. “I’ve just moved some gigs for the third time,” says Smith. “It’s going to be a while before I’m going out and physically playing these songs.” It’s typical, he says, with good humour — he’d lined up some great venues to play in, and with the social distancing requirements significantly reducing their capacity, he would even have been able to say he had sold them out.
But Smith is not one to dwell on what-might-have-beens. Instead, he’ll be launching The Fray with a collection of livestreamed gigs, knowing that they have proved successful for him before. He has been reading a lot, recently, into business and economics and financial strategies – as he very sensibly observes, “it’s important for any musician to understand how money works because there’s going to be less of it going around.”
Smith has always been one to live the simple life, and with full lockdown resumed in Britain since the start of 2021, there has been ample opportunity to do so. There is no doubt that The Fray’s themes of getting by in the day-to-day will resonate broadly. After all, never before have so many humans experienced such similar circumstances all at the same time. “Extraordinary, isn’t it?” says Smith.
Honky tonk maestro Dale Watson grew up in Pasadena, TX, just on the Galveston Bay side of Houston. With a father and brother who played country music, he was playing professionally by his early teens. In 1988, alt-country pioneer Rosie Flores convinced him to move to Los Angeles, where he became integral to the scene at the Palomino Club. Then it was on to Austin, a debut album on Hightone Records and a long run of critical and popular acclaim as one of the proudest, silkiest voices carrying the torch for country music. Now he’s putting down new roots in Memphis TN. He’s the new owner of a legendary south Memphis road house called Hernando’s Hideaway, which he’ll reopen after renovations this summer. He’s taken his concept of Ameripolitan music to new heights with a growing Memphis festival and an awards show that just wrapped its sixth edition. And he made his new album there – his 32nd release. So there’s a lot to talk about.
Also, getting to know English folk singer and master guitarist John Smith, whose new album Hummingbird blends a few originals with a collection of age-old English ballads.
Artist:John Smith Hometown: Essex, UK Latest Album: Hummingbird Personal nicknames (or rejected band names): Smitty (Joe Henry and The Milk Carton Kids started calling me this around the Invisible Hour recording sessions and it stuck. I like it). Johann Schmidt (when on tour in Germany and Austria). When I first started gigging I had a little outfit of bass, cello, and violin. I called us The Wooden Ducks for about five gigs. Since then it’s been the John Smith Trio. I’ve always admired jazz musicians and to me, the words Trio and Quartet are innately very cool words to use, even for a folkie like me.
What’s the toughest time you ever had writing a song?
I remember it took almost a year to write “Great Lakes.” I had the first verse and the chorus but I spent months trying different ideas, looking for the right path and tripping over myself the whole time. That’s what got me into co-writing. I started to share ideas with others which opened up my creative thinking in a new way. Suddenly I felt more receptive even to my own ideas. I finished writing “She Is My Escape” with Joe Henry and then “Great Lakes” revealed itself to me. I’ve been into co-writing since then.
What’s your favorite memory from being on stage?
I used to play electric guitar with David Gray. There was a moment during a slide solo at Red Rocks when the band went quiet. I had a very brief moment of very loud guitar heroism with the sun going down over the mountains and I didn’t screw it up! It’s so easy to screw up a guitar solo though. I think they are often best avoided or attempted alone at home. I played a bum note in the Royal Albert Hall around that time and half the crowd laughed. I had to die a little inside before I was able to see the funny side. My classical musician friend told me, “Darling, you’re no one until you’ve whacked out a spare at the Royal Albert Hall.”
In Amsterdam a guy in the audience asked if he could play and sing a song on my guitar, and he performed a beautiful rendition of one of my own. That was a kind of magic. It’s one thing seeing it on YouTube but another entirely when it’s onstage at your own gig. That would be my current favourite memory.
What was the first moment that you knew you wanted to be a musician?
When I was 11 years old I had already passed a few grades on the piano. I thought nothing of it beyond the fact that I was simply playing piano in school. I enjoyed music of course but I don’t think I knew that I could live my life through its lens.
So my dad sat me down one day and put on the Physical Graffiti LP and I heard “Kashmir” by Led Zeppelin for the first time. It completely blew my mind, a totally definitive experience. I saw a different world on the other side of the needle. Doors opened in my mind and I felt alive in a very different way to before. It might sound a little hyperbolic but it’s true. I knew right then that I wanted to make music and I actually needed to play guitar. My dad gave me a Stratocaster and that was it for me.
What rituals do you have, either in the studio or before a show?
I learned early on from Joe that if you’re going to work you need to dress the part. Not just for yourself but for the people around you. When I’m in the studio I make sure to iron my shirt and comb my hair. I work harder and concentrate well if I’m holding myself to a reasonably high standard. The same goes for being onstage. I believe you should look good for the people who’ve paid to see you.
In the dressing room, or maybe it’s just a corridor or a bathroom, before a show, I warm up with a song or two and write a couple of notes. I don’t believe in carrying much around with me. I try to use what’s in my guitar case.
Since food and music go so well together, what is your dream pairing of a meal and a musician?
I once ate a bowl of olives at an Allen Toussaint concert and those were the best olives I ever tasted. I like to listen to Ry Cooder when I eat. I reckon Bop Til You Drop is the record I’ve listened to the most in my life. My dad used to put it on every time we had friends over for dinner, and he cooks Indian food. Therefore I like to cook curries and play Ry Cooder records for my friends. I don’t know a better way to do it. If ever I have a clear day off at home, I’ll spend it cooking and listening to Freddie King, Joni Mitchell, Keith Jarrett. Sometimes I’ll crank up Mastodon to help chop the onions.
About the Playlist: Songs and interpretations by the artists who have influenced my life as a folksinger, not only in the musical sense but in the way I think about the bigger picture; each of these records has helped to guide me to where I am now.
Get off your couch and go hear some live music with Britain’s Got Bluegrass!, BGS – UK’s monthly guide to the best gigs happening in the UK and Ireland. Here are our top picks for February:
Mike McGoldrick, John McCusker & John Doyle— from 11 February, nationwide. After their sell-out shows with the Transatlantic Sessions, John McCusker, Mike McGoldrick and John Doyle take their powerhouse folk trio on the road. The Wishing Tree Tour visits 24 towns and cities across Britain until 9 March, including London (Kings Place), Liverpool and Perth.
The Dead South — 17 February, Birmingham. The Bastard Son tour has reached the UK and Saskatchewan’s superstars of bluegrass have been steamrollering their way through the UK on a series of sold out gigs, and their remaining nights in Portsmouth, Brighton, London and Cambridge are all returns only. But you can still buy tickets for their Birmingham gig, at O2 Institute3, so grab them while you can.
Whiskey Shivers— to 23 February, nationwide. The Austin punkgrass outfit are halfway through their rumbustious tour, with gigs still to come in Galway, Norwich, Nottingham, Settle and Newcastle upon Tyne. We recommend the 19 February gig at the Lexington in London, whose upstairs room should suit their energetic, anarchic spirit.
John Smith— 24 February, Royal Exchange, Manchester. The singer-songwriter’s first album, Hummingbird, combines his original songs with a deeply personal collection of traditional folk tunes. And he’s bringing his unique blend of slide and fingerstyle guitar to one of Manchester’s favourite venues.
The Bluegrass Situation will join the AMA-UK for the Bootleg BBQ on Saturday (Sept. 15) at the Groove in Nashville, Tennessee. The intimate BGS Stage will be located inside the East Nashville record store, with live sets beings streamed on the BGS Facebook page. Artists on the BGS stage will alternate with performers on the outdoor British Underground mainstage. The event is free and open to the public.
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