Chris Smither: Surprise Surprise
[purchase]
Chris Smither is one of those musicians I learned about on account of my love for Bonnie Raitt's music. On her Give It Up album, she covers Love Me Like a Man from Smither's 1970 album I'm a Stranger Too. On Takin My Time, she does I Feel The Same. I know that bowhowdy has posted about him more than once and there is plenty you can learn from there.
Smither has been doing his thing since some time in the 60s and it shows. It's apparent in the sparse guitar that does all it needs and a little more. It's there in the way his vocals are right on: gritty, sort of like Dylan from the 70s with a touch of John Prine mixed in.
Here we've got Smither in a 2009 trio with Zak Trojano doing the percussion and David Goodrich on 2nd guitar. It's a song for our times that deals with the theme of our current financial woes:
just when things were looking up, they arent looking so good
they told you they would fill your cup ...
the trickle down will float you up
surprise, surprise, it ain't so
The album, Time Stands Still is perhaps his best. There is a cover of It Takes s Lot To Laugh, It Takes a Train To Cry that is the best I have ever heard. The rest of the album is just as good.