Chris Smither

With his dazzling guitar picking skills and warm, laid-back delivery, Chris Smither has been a well-established favourite on the American folk circuit since the mid-1960s and had his songs covered by luminaries such as Emmylou Harris, Diana Krall and Bonnie Raitt.

Growing up in New Orleans he was taught to play by his uncle on an old ukulele, but it was his discovery of blues greats like Lightnin' Hopkins and Mississippi John Hurt in his late teens that inspired his rhythmic, acoustic grooves and fluent fingerstyle technique. His spells at university in Louisiana and Mexico fell by the wayside and by 1965 he was cutting his teeth in Boston busking on the streets and playing in coffee houses under the guidance of folk singer Eric von Schmidt.

He released his debut album 'I'm a Stranger Too' in 1970 and Maria Muldaur and Happy Traum both featured on his follow-up 'Don't It Drag On', but his reputation really grew two years later when Bonnie Raitt covered his track 'Love Me Like a Man' and made it an important staple of her set over the years. Though the glory days of the American folk scene were long gone and Smither struggled with drinking problems after being dropped from his label, he continued to hone his signature sound in New England basement clubs and was known for stomping his foot and letting his fingers dance and glide across the fretboard.

He returned again with 'It Aint Easy' in 1984 and 'Another Way to Find You' in 1991, but it was 'Happier Blue' in 1993 that made a more significant impact, winning a National American Independent Record Distributors Award and re-establishing Smither as a master of folk-blues songwriting. In later years Emmylou Harris recorded his track 'Slow Surprise' for the Robert Redford movie 'The Horse Whisperer' and Smither worked with Tim O'Brien on the acclaimed 'Leave the Light On' and collaborated with Jorma Kaukonen on the 'True Folk' compilation in 2006 before celebrating 50 years in the business on 'Still On the Levee' in 2014. He returned for more acclaim with fresh new material on 'Call Me Lucky' in 2018.