In celebration of blues icon Chris Smither’s 70th birthday, Signature Sounds release Link of Chain: A Songwriters Tribute to Chris Smither on September 30, 2014. The album features friends and peers like Loudon Wainwright III, Bonnie Raitt, Patty Larkin, Josh Ritter, Peter Case, Tim O’Brien, and Dave Alvin performing gems plucked from Smither’s deep catalog. Music fans know that Chris Smither has written a countless number of masterful songs during his 50-year career, but hearing this eclectic set of interpretations is a startling reminder of the depth of Smither’s catalog.
Signature Sounds owner Jim Olsen, who got the idea at a 60th birthday tribute to Smither at Boston’s fabled Club Passim, produced the compilation. “People were covering Chris’s…
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…songs and everyone’s interpretations were very different. You can’t really cover him straight because so few people can play like him and do that thing. It made you hear the songs in such a new way. I thought, ‘This guy needs a tribute album.’”
“That thing” Olsen refers to is Smither’s powerful combination of rippling, finger-picked blues and philosophical poetry. “Musically, he’s Lightnin’ Hopkins and Mississippi John Hurt and lyrically he’s Leonard Cohen,” says Olsen.
The album begins with Dave Alvin giving “Link of Chain” a spacious, big-sky feel that contrasts with Smither’s more driving original version. You can hear Alvin’s love for the song shining through his sandy voice. Alvin and Smither forged a strong connection when sharing a label (Hightone Records) and touring as the Monsters of Folk with Tom Russell and Ramblin’ Jack Elliot in 1998. More recently they swapped songs with Peter Case on a Roots on the Rail Los Angeles-to-Seattle musical train trip. You’ll find Case’s intimate take on the wistful “Caveman” on this tribute as well.
1. Dave Alvin – Link of Chain [03:59]
2. Loudon Wainwright III – A Place in Line [03:17]
3. Mary Gauthier – I Feel the Same [04:19]
4. Josh Ritter – Rosalie [04:11]
5. Paul Cebar – No Love Today [04:49]
6. Eilen Jewell – Can’t Shake These Blues [04:07]
7. Jorma Kaukonen – Leave the Light On [03:39]
8. Aoife O’Donovan & Stephanie Coleman – Small Revelations [03:42]
9. Tim O’Brien – Origin of Species [02:59]
10. Bonnie Raitt – Love Me Like a Man (Live) [04:35]
11. Peter Mulvey – Time to Spend [03:05]
12. Mark Erelli & Jeffrey Foucault – Song for Susan [04:39]
13. Heather Maloney – Call Yourself [03:44]
14. Peter Case – Caveman [04:40]
15. Patty Larkin – Train Home [04:31]