Chris Smither – All About the Bones (CD)

The sound and imagery of Chris Smither’s 20th album is as elemental as the inky black shadows cast by a shockingly bright moon – The listener is welcomed into some gothic mansion on an imaginary New Orleans street, and there in the lamplit parlor confronts Smither’s inimitable propulsive guitar and rumbling baritone, joined seamlessly to producer David Goodrich’s carpetbag of instruments, Zak Trojano’s rock-steady drumming, BettySoo’s diaphanous harmony vocals, and the mournful flood of Jazz legend Chris Cheek’s saxophone. Smither deemed “One of the absolute best singer-songwriters in the world” (Associated Press) is an American original whose genius is both in his effortless, distinctive, rippling guitar and in his reimagining of the acoustic blues as a vehicle for rich, philosophically complex lyrics. The light given off from the music and writing on All About The Bones casts our own lives into a sublime and welcome clarity.