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Live As I'll Ever Be
''Live As I'll Ever Be'' is the title of a recording by American singer/songwriter Chris Smither. It is a live album recorded over the course of several years. The cover was painted by Eric Von Schmidt. Reception Writing for Allmusic, critic Ann Wikstrom wrote of the album "There are entertaining song intros and bits of warm banter with the audience, too. Chris Smither is always at his best when he is performing live. In fact, he often says that he writes songs and records albums just so he can perform live, and not the other way around. Live As I'll Ever Be gives you a great front-row seat, any time you want it." Barbara Flaska of ''PopMatters'' wrote in her review "Smither is a guitarist, singer, and songwriter to be reckoned with. He sings in a beautifully timbered deep voice. His guitar work blends strong roots with his own innovative stylings." Track listing All songs by Chris Smither unless otherwise noted. # "Intro" – :34 # "Hold On" – 4:01 # "The Devil's Real" – 4: ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chris Smither
William Christopher Smither (born November 11, 1944) is an American folk/ blues singer, guitarist, and songwriter. His music draws deeply from the blues, American folk music, and modern poets and philosophers. Early life, influences and education He was born in Miami, Florida, United States to Catherine(nee Weaver) and William J. Smither. Although Smither does not himself credit family influence to his talents, uncle Howard E. Smither was an award-winning musicologist and author, and father William was a leading professor of Spanish and Mexican culture. The family was well traveled. They lived in Ecuador and the Rio Grande Valley in Texas before settling in New Orleans when Chris was three years old. He grew up in New Orleans, and lived briefly in Paris where he and his twin sister Mary Catherine attended French public school. It was in Paris that Smither got his first guitar, one his father brought him from Spain. Shortly after, the family returned to New Orleans where his fa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Blues
Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the African-American culture. The blues form is ubiquitous in jazz, rhythm and blues, and rock and roll, and is characterized by the call-and-response pattern (the blues scale and specific chord progressions) of which the twelve-bar blues is the most common. Blue notes (or "worried notes"), usually thirds, fifths or sevenths flattened in pitch, are also an essential part of the sound. Blues shuffles or walking bass reinforce the trance-like rhythm and form a repetitive effect known as the groove. Blues as a genre is also characterized by its lyrics, bass lines, and instrumentation. Early traditional blues verses consisted of a single line repeated four times. It was only in the first decades of the 20th century that the most common c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Folk Music
Folk music is a music genre that includes traditional folk music and the contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be called world music. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted orally, music with unknown composers, music that is played on traditional instruments, music about cultural or national identity, music that changes between generations (folk process), music associated with a people's folklore, or music performed by custom over a long period of time. It has been contrasted with commercial and classical styles. The term originated in the 19th century, but folk music extends beyond that. Starting in the mid-20th century, a new form of popular folk music evolved from traditional folk music. This process and period is called the (second) folk revival and reached a zenith in the 1960s. This form of music is sometimes called contemporary folk music or folk ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
HighTone Records
HighTone Records was an American independent record label based in Oakland, California, United States. HighTone specialized in American roots music including, country, rockabilly, western swing, blues and gospel. The label was created by Larry Sloven and Bruce Bromberg in 1983. The label's first release that year was '' Bad Influence'' by bluesman Robert Cray. In 1984, the label released Frankie Lee's debut album, ''The Ladies and the Babies''. Some of the label's releases in the late 1980s featured Joe Louis Walker including ''Cold is the Night'' and ''The Gift.'' Between 1995 and 2000, the label issued three albums by James Armstrong (''Sleeping with a Stranger'', ''Dark Night'', and ''Got It Goin' On''). From 1997 to 2005 it reissued much of the High Water Recording Company catalogue of LPs on CD. In 1997, Clara McDaniel recorded her debut album, ''Unwanted Child'', which was released on HighTone. In September 2006, the label released a five CD boxed set titled ''Ame ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Drive You Home Again
''Drive You Home Again'' is an album by American singer/songwriter Chris Smither, released in 1999. Reception Writing for Allmusic, critic Jeff Burger wrote of the album "Smither's gravelly, instantly recognizable voice is a perfect fit for his pensive, sharply honed lyrics and his blues and folk-based music... Like Nick Drake and the Van Morrison of ''Astral Weeks'' days, Smither makes you feel as if you're in a dream. You may not want to wake up for a while." Music critic Robert Christgau wrote "...you'd never suspect he was a moral philosopher. But in fact he is that even rarer thing, a moral philosopher with good values, and here his songwriting takes over a career marked by killer covers... he thinks on his butt while keeping the beat with his foot. He's worth attending even if you think blues are history." Track listing All songs by Chris Smither unless otherwise noted. # "Drive You Home Again" – 5:28 # "Tell Me Why You Love Me" – 3:55 # "No Love Today" – 4:57 # "Hey, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Train Home (Chris Smither Album)
''Train Home'' is an album by American singer/songwriter Chris Smither, released in 2003. Guest Bonnie Raitt provides slide guitar and backup vocals on "Desolation Row". Reception Writing for Allmusic, critic Hal Horowitz called the release "a quiet gem" and wrote of the album "Chris Smither settles into his distinctive combination of folk and blues with this excellent release. Although not pushing established boundaries, his rich, velvety voice and mature spoken-sung vocals convey a sense of truth and add depth to these introspective compositions." Music critic Robert Christgau gave the album a choice cut for "Let It Go". Track listing All songs by Chris Smither unless otherwise noted. # "Train Home" – 4:12 # "Outside In" – 4:11 # "Confirmation" – 4:05 # "Crocodile Man" (Dave Carter) – 3:33 # "Lola" - 3:27 # "Desolation Row" (Bob Dylan) – 7:45 # "Call Time" – 3:35 # "Candy Man" (Mississippi John Hurt) – 3:37 # "Never Needed It More" – 3:17 # "Let It Go" – 4:33 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five major unincorporated territories, nine United States Minor Outlying Islands, Minor Outlying Islands, and 326 Indian reservations. The United States is also in Compact of Free Association, free association with three Oceania, Pacific Island Sovereign state, sovereign states: the Federated States of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, and the Palau, Republic of Palau. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, third-largest country by both land and total area. It shares land borders Canada–United States border, with Canada to its north and Mexico–United States border, with Mexico to its south and has maritime borders with the Bahamas, Cuba, Russia, and other nations. With a population of over 333 million, it is the List of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Singer/songwriter
A singer-songwriter is a musician who writes, composes, and performs their own musical material, including lyrics and melodies. In the United States, the category is built on the folk-acoustic tradition, although this role has transmuted through different eras of popular music. Singer-songwriters often provide the sole accompaniment to an entire composition or song, typically using a guitar or piano. In the early 21st century, digital production tools such as GarageBand began to be used by singer-songwriters to compose their music. Definition and usage The label "singer-songwriter" (or "song-writer/singer") is used by record labels and critics to define popular-music artists who write and perform their own material, which is often self-accompanied - generally on acoustic guitar or piano. Such an artist performs the roles of composer, lyricist, vocalist, sometimes instrumentalist, and often self-manager. According to AllMusic, singer-songwriters' lyrics are often pers ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eric Von Schmidt
Eric Von Schmidt (May 28, 1931 – February 2, 2007) was an American singer and guitarist, songwriter, painter and illustrator, and Grammy Award recipient. He was associated with the folk boom of the late 1950s and early 1960s and a key part of the Cambridge folk music scene. As a singer and guitarist, he was considered to be the leading specialist in country blues in Cambridge at the time, the counterpart of Greenwich Village's Dave Van Ronk. Von Schmidt co-authored with Jim Rooney ''Baby, Let Me Follow You Down: The Illustrated Story of the Cambridge Folk Years''. Biography Von Schmidt's father, Harold von Schmidt, was a Western painter who did illustrations for the ''Saturday Evening Post''. Von Schmidt began selling his own artwork while he was still a teenager. Following a stint in the army, he won a Fulbright scholarship to study art in Florence. He moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1957, where he painted and became part of the coffeehouse scene. Von Schmidt share ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Allmusic
AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the database was first made available on the Internet in 1994. AllMusic is owned by RhythmOne. History AllMusic was launched as All-Music Guide by Michael Erlewine, a "compulsive archivist, noted astrologer, Buddhist scholar and musician". He became interested in using computers for his astrological work in the mid-1970s and founded a software company, Matrix, in 1977. In the early 1990s, as CDs replaced LPs as the dominant format for recorded music, Erlewine purchased what he thought was a CD of early recordings by Little Richard. After buying it, he discovered it was a "flaccid latter-day rehash". Frustrated with the labeling, he researched using metadata to create a music guide. In 1990, in Big Rapids, Michigan, he founded ''All Music Guid ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
PopMatters
''PopMatters'' is an international online magazine of cultural criticism that covers aspects of popular culture. ''PopMatters'' publishes reviews, interviews, and essays on cultural products and expressions in areas such as music, television, films, books, video games, comics, sports, theater, visual arts, travel, and the Internet. History ''PopMatters'' was founded by Sarah Zupko, who had previously established the cultural studies academic resource site PopCultures. ''PopMatters'' launched in late 1999 as a sister site providing original essays, reviews and criticism of various media products. Over time, the site went from a weekly publication schedule to a five-day-a-week magazine format, expanding into regular reviews, features, and columns. In the fall of 2005, monthly readership exceeded one million. From 2006 onward, ''PopMatters'' produced several syndicated newspaper columns for McClatchy-Tribune News Service. By 2009 there were four different pop culture relate ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Steve Tilston
Steve Tilston (born 26 March 1950) is an English folk singer-songwriter and guitarist. Early life Steve Tilston was born in Liverpool and brought up in Leicestershire. A graphic designer before taking up music in 1971, Tilston lived in Bristol where he recorded his first album, ''An Acoustic Confusion''. In the early 1980s, he ran a folk club with Bert Jansch in New Kings Road, London. Tilston recorded a rock album in 1982 called ''In for a Penny – In for a Pound'', but soon reverted to quieter music. In 1985, Tilston played guitar and mandolin with the on-stage band for "''Sergeant Early's Dream''" while on tour with Ballet Rambert, and again when the ballet toured England in 2000–2001. Tilston formed his own record label, Run River, in 1987, and in 1988 he was a member of John Renbourn's group Ship of Fools, which released one eponymous album on Tilston's label. In 1990, he was a session musician on Peter Bellamy's album ''Soldiers Three''. By the 1990s, Tilston was frequ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
