The real deal

Jack Smith is still rockin' hard on Cruel Red

by Bob Gulla

Jack Smith

One of the best things about writing this column is meeting people, good people, mostly ones who are spending their lives in search of a way to make music for a living. There are many a talented folk out there -- more than you think -- that, quietly or not, have their hearts set on playing the music they love for a living.

For 26 years, that was Jack Smith. The Rhode Island rockabilly legend, who established himself as one of the genre's true talents and a bona fide local hero, has spent 13 of those years making records and playing shows full-time, looking to charge up audiences nationwide without the benefit of a hit record. No easy feat, considering rockabilly is plenty out of favor, save one or two popular exceptions that managed to attract some attention. I mean, the last time real rockabilly earned considerable notoriety was back in the '50s at the dawn of rock 'n' roll, when Sam Phillips was working his magic at Sun Studios down in Memphis.

"Elvis was the cat," agrees Smith. "No ifs, ands, or buts. Without those Sun Sessions who knows where rock 'n' roll would be?"

Speaking of Elvis, Jack Smith himself cuts a real Presley-like figure. Now 56, he's tall and trim, with sideburns down to there and a husky presence. Dressed in black, he seems like he could have been there himself along with Carl and Johnny, Elvis and Jerry Lee. He's that real. And that's not even addressing the man's music . . .

"I have absolutely never ever said to myself or my band that a certain song has got to sound like this band or that style," says Smith, proud of his career-long resolve to discover the truth in his music. "It's always been up to the individual musicians in the band to come up with their own parts. We go for feel. That's the only way."

Feel is something you get quite a lot of when you listen to Jack's new album, Cruel Red. It's his fourth album and by far the best of his career, full of the genuine, boot-stomping, late '50s verve of classic rockabilly. With the help of longtime associates Jerry Miller and Billy Coover on guitar, Rory MacLeod on bass, and Dougie Hinman on drums, Smith swashbuckles his way through rollicking tunes like "Big Daddy" and "Lookin' At the Future." The latter song includes a telling lyric about how so few of today's musicians respect their past: "Listen little stranger, you ain't the only game in town/Bigger men than both of us have walked this hallowed ground."

"So many kids are unaware of all that came before them," says Smith. "They think it all started with them."

Cruel Red features pieces co-written with MacLeod, Coover, and Miller. "We have a good sense of each other as a band," says Smith. "If I write with Jerry, he'll put a lick down and I'll come up with a melody and lyrics. Billy Coover did the same thing for `Big Daddy' and I put a melody to it and some lyrics. The same with Rory, too, who co-wrote `Looking At the Future.' He came in with a lick and I put a melody and lyrics to it."

Besides being a collaboration, Smith and the band recorded and mixed the album in less than two days. "The record company had us on a pretty tight pulley," says Smith. "I actually think it became a challenge. We went in on a Friday night and spent four hours. And on Saturday, we went in at noon and by 8 p.m. it was done."

Despite the frenzied nature of the recording, it doesn't sound rushed, merely urgent. It doesn't feel slapped together, no more than those Sun Sessions did back in the '50s. "This is the first album I've ever done that I've listened to more than twice," says Smith. "I've listened to it a bunch of times and it hasn't pissed me off yet."

Why? "It's the songs. I've already started thinking of the next one and the songs I'm writing now will rival these. Songwriting is the favorite thing I do. Plus I've got one of the best bands in the country to work with and execute those ideas."

Besides writing and playing with excellent musicians, Smith tells great stories. You get the feeling in talking with him, that Smith, the only son of a half-breed ne'er-do-well abandoned at 13, has an endless flow of great personal sagas, some hard-bitten, some colorful, some unlucky, some just plain funny. He has a vivid eye for detail and a magical way of laying it all out. And if you think that has nothing to do with the man's music, you're wrong. The storytelling element provides a painterly dimension to Smith's material that few neo-rockabilly cats, or young songwriters in general, can muster.

"A good song has to have the right feel. I hear pop songs and they're all wonderful, but I don't hear them when I sit down to write. Carl Perkins, now he always wrote with a feel."

And what does Smith see when he looks back on a career of near-misses, at busy decades of dues-paying that has never amounted to great commercial success? "I've got no regrets. I've gotten to know some great people -- Dave Alvin, Sonny Burgess, Roy Orbison, Carl Perkins, George Jones, Fats Domino. For 13 years I made music for a living," he says. Smith now sells and often installs oversized tires to put food on the table. "You've got one ride to take. You'd be pretty stupid to get bummed about mistakes you've made. That's just a fiddle-de-dee, as long as you're true to yourself."

AMOS HOUSE DISC REDUX. It's not too late to pick up a last-minute CD for that music hound of yours. In a return engagement from its successful debut last year, the Amos House Benefit disc, Uptight Before Christmas Again, is back on the shelves. Project coordinator Tim McCarthy says that only a few of the discs remain, and informs us that you can find them at Books On the Square, Tom's Tracks, and Opulent Owl down on South Main. If you recall, the disc includes a number of good performers, from the New England Christmastide Musicians and the 4th Street String Band to Pendragon, Atwater and Donnelly, David Peel, and the Fuggs.

"Last year it sold 600 units and everything we made on it we sent to Amos House." According to McCarthy, that means about $4000 went to a very worthwhile source. "It's a real push getting something like this together. Christmas season is a lot of hype and putting this together was a huge project, but it has paid off."

WANDERING EYE. Because the (Fabulous) Itchies have decided to go on hiatus indefinitely, guitarist Dennis Kelly has quickly assembled another band, a power trio called the Worried. The band includes the rhythm section of Scott Boutier (Frank Black and the Catholics) and Pete McLanahan (the Goops), with Kelly handling the guitar. The inquisitive among you will be able to check them out this Friday at the Green Room, where they'll share the bill with Razor Wire.