Chris Smither w/Suitcase Junket

Having distilled his own signature sound of blues and folk for over 50 years, Chris Smither is truly an American original. A profound songwriter, Chris continues to draw deeply from the blues, American folk music, modern poets and philosophers. From his early days as the New Orleans transplant in the Boston folk scene, through his wilderness years, to his reemergence in the 1990s as one of America’s most distinctive acoustic performers, Chris Smither continues to hone his distinctive sound. He has always traveled his own road and stayed true to his musical vision. He may be best known for writing "Love You Like A Man" which Bonnie Raitt and, more recently, jazz great Diana Krall have covered. His music has been covered by numerous artists and featured in soundtrack albums, independent film, television, and commercials. Reviewers continue to praise his dazzling guitar work, gravelly voice and songwriting. The New York Times: “With a weary, well-traveled voice and a serenely intricate finger-picking style, Mr. Smither turns the blues into songs that accept hard-won lessons and try to make peace with fate.”

More From the Levee (2020 Signature Sounds) is a masterwork and companion release to the celebrated double-CD 50-year career retrospective Still On the Levee that came out in 2014.  It sports the unmistakable guitar sound Chris has made his own meshed with spare, brilliant songs, delivered in a bone-wise, hard-won voice.   

Matt Lorenz’s vision, manifest in The Suitcase Junket, developed in the tension between the grand and the solitary. Grand in its imagery, sound, and staging. Solitary in its thrift and self-reliance. What instruments he requires, Lorenz builds from scratch and salvage. What parts five players would perform, he performs alone. The spectacle of his one-man set bears constant comparison to legends of showmanship, brilliance, madness, and invention.

While audiences are captivated by his solitary form and the show itself, Lorenz, who homesteads with rescue dogs and chickens in rural Western Massachusetts, is most serious about the songs. He has been building a catalog, writing a world into existence. Solitary on stage and on the road, his mind is crowded with characters, narratives, voices, imagery, sounds as wide and varied as mountain throat singers and roadhouse juke boxes, plus newsreels of the planet’s destruction and salvage. With this 2020 release, The End is New, Lorenz’s grand vision for the song overrides the how of it.