Chris Smither

Call Me Lucky

Signature Sounds Recordings

Chris Smither’s vocals are accompanied by guitar techniques he learned from blues masters Lightnin’ Hopkins and Mississippi John Hurt. His 1970 debut recording “Devil Got Your Man” included the song “Love You like a Man”. In 1972 the song was recorded by Bonnie Raitt and helped establish Smither as one of our foremost songwriters. Smither’s last album “Still on The Levee” was a fifty year career retrospective featuring re-recorded versions of twenty-five of his best songs.

This is Smither’s 18^th album and first studio recording of new originals in six years. Smither is joined by producer David Goodrich, guitars and piano; Billy Conway or Mike Meadows, drums and percussion; Matt Lorenz, violin, keyboards, guitar and vocals; and Keith Gary, vocals. The album was recorded by Gary at The Blue Rock Ranch and Studio in Wimberley, TX.

There are two discs. The first includes eight new songs and two covers. The second disc includes re-interpretations by Smither of five of his new songs and another cover. Lyrics are included which makes listening easier. Smither’s uncanny introspection usually comes to someone through a higher power. His deeply soulful songs offer commentary on the human condition.

“Nobody Home” is specifically about our desensitization and one of the verses even relates to the situation on Pennsylvania Avenue. “Change Your Mind” includes the lyric “and it’s hard, really hard to change your mind”. On “Down To The Sound” Smither sings “There’s no notion of order, it’s hard to arrange”.

The three re-arranged covers are equally exciting as he makes them his own. Included is a menacing version of Chuck Berry’s “Maybelline”; “Sitting On Top of the World” written by Walter Vinson and Lonnie Chatmon, core members of The Mississippi Shieks, which was originally recorded in 1930; and Lennon and McCartney’s “She Said She Said”.

Smither is an artsy songwriter even poetic. His songs demand repeated listening.

Richard Ludmerer

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