One-man band

Chris Smither plays his rockin' country blues

by Chris Erikson

"I ain't some beginner," Chris Smither sings on the leadoff track to his new album, Small Revelations (Hightone), fully 30 years after he arrived in these parts with an acoustic guitar in tow. And at age 52, after weathering countless gigs, sour record deals, and day jobs, not to mention alcohol addiction, he sings it pretty convincingly.

But things have taken a few new turns of late for the Arlington-based singer/songwriter/guitarist, who's in the midst of a career renaissance that began in earnest with the 1995 release of Up on the Lowdown. His first for the esteemed Oakland roots label Hightone, it was an earthy gem that found him at the top of his game, and it became the best-selling disc of his career.

For Small Revelations, his eighth album, Smither quite literally picked up where "Lowdown" left off, returning to the same Austin studio with the same producer (Stephen Bruton) and the same core group of musicians, adding acoustic bass, drums, and other low-key instrumentation. It's no surprise, then, that there are no radical departures; built around Smither's voice and guitar, the album is 10 songs that reconcile his deep roots in country blues with a penchant for decidedly non-gutbucket singer-songwriterly introspection.

And for a guy who can play the bejesus out of "Dust My Broom" (which he covers here, along with Brownie McGee's "Sportin' Life"), Smither gets downright philosophical. "Cave Man," "Slow Surprises," and the title track, in which his bluesy guitar cuts through an ethereal wash of organ and percussion, are brooding, pensive numbers with a whiff of mysticism. They find a balance in the breezy "Help Me Now" (which puts a contemplative lyric to a shuffling groove), the wryly humorous "Winsome Smile," and a steady-rolling cover of Jesse Winchester's "Thanks to You," which Smither nails with a gruff, understated vocal.

It makes for a seductive blend, which, as Smither tells it, took root when he was growing up in New Orleans, inspired by both the great country bluesmen and the folk poets of the '60s. "I was really torn because I listened to Lightnin' Hopkins and Skip James and Mississippi John Hurt, and that was the way I wanted to play. But when it came to writing songs, I wanted to sound hip and contemporary. I wanted to sound like Bob Dylan. So basically you put those two together and you come up with what I do."

This kind of cross-pollination has made Smither's work tough to pigeonhole. Although he's been branded both a folkie and a bluesman, he's an odd man out in both camps. Add a touch of pop sensibility and a willingness to throw in the occasional curveball, like the ragtimy "Hook, Line and Sinker" that closes "Small Revelations," and things get even trickier.

"I just sort of sit here and straddle fences," is how he sums it up. "People often ask me, `What category do you put yourself in?', and I say, well, I put myself in the same category as Ry Cooder, Randy Newman, and John Hiatt. So I mean, where are they? What do you call that? I don't know."

The critical praise and overseas tours that followed Up on the Lowdown were an extension of what Smither refers to as his "second career." The first one began when he ensconced himself in the forefront of the late-'60s Cambridge music scene, performing, writing, and releasing a pair of independent records. It petered out in the early '70s, when he descended into a mire of alcohol abuse that sidetracked him for a decade.

"I spent about 10 years really drunk and sick, and then, when I got out of that, all of a sudden this whole singer/songwriter scene was happening all over again. After I'd been clean and sober for about two years, I remembered, `Hey, I'm supposed to be a musician.' "

Since he quit his last construction job, in 1989, Smither has been on a steady touring schedule, logging 150 to 200 shows a year. At the end of January he'll begin a jaunt that will last through Christmas, hitting the road the way he always has -- alone with his trademark blue guitar.

Although he's considered the possibility of a band tour, Smither is content to stay "a one-man band to the bone," as he puts it on "Help Me Now." "Sometimes it seems that if you want to make any kind of move to the next level, you have to have a band. But I'm just not interested in it. I never really wanted to be in a band. That's what the appeal was when I first heard country blues. Because I loved rock and roll, and when I heard these guys it was so obvious to me that this was primitive rock and roll, and that they were doing it all by themselves."

Chris Smither will appear at the Iron Horse in Northampton on February 7, and at Borders in Boston on February 14.