Chris Smith

Tori Amos: The Loudest Voice in the Chair

Interview by Chris Smith, Performing Songwriter, The, September 1998

My scream got lost in a paper cup you think there's a heaven where some screams have gone?I've got twenty-five bucks and a cracker do ...

Paul Brady: The Ever-Changing World of Paul Brady

Interview by Chris Smith, Performing Songwriter, The, March 1998

A MENTOR ONCE told me there were two rules to writing about other people's lives: First, always remember that as the journalist, you're not the ...

Chieftains, The: Paddy Moloney: The Abundant Life of The Chieftains

Interview by Chris Smith, Performing Songwriter, The, March 1998

IF YOU'VE EVER visited Graceland in Memphis, Tennessee, one of the most memorable legs of the tour (not quite as touching as the meditation garden ...

Mary Gauthier: The Darker Side of Dixie

Interview by Chris Smith, Rockrgrl, January 2000

MIDNIGHT HAS LONG since passed, and we're sitting in the dim alley behind the legendary Club Passim in Harvard Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The fire ...

Janis Joplin: Got Them Battlin' Janis Bio Blues

Report by Chris Smith, Texas Music, Summer 2005

AH JANIS. OK, so you gave us an alternate spelling for 'cosmic,' helped corral all the hippies into San Francisco, proved white people can sing ...

Brian Kennedy

Interview by Chris Smith, Performing Songwriter, The, March 1998

BRIAN KENNEDY is caught between a pillow and a soft place. On the one hand, he's an emerging solo artist whose debut album in 1990 ...

Meat Loaf: The Meat Goes On

Comment by Chris Smith, Texas Music, Summer 2005

"BITCH TITS." That's the first thing that comes to mind whenever we think of Meat Loaf anymore. ...

Willie Nelson: The Lone Star Spirit of Willie Nelson

Profile and Interview by Chris Smith, Performing Songwriter, The, December 1998

THERE WAS, of course, Texas music before Willie. Problem was, nobody outside of Texas heard it. The eclectic styles growing from lone star roots before ...

Peter, Paul & Mary: What Makes A Song Endure

Interview by Chris Smith, Performing Songwriter, The, May 1998

IT'S APRIL, 2048, the year of the cockroach. The lines curve out the door of Radio City Music Hall, around the block, and down Sixth ...

Chris Smither: Accoustic Blues

Profile and Interview by Chris Smith, Revue, May 1999

DESPITE HIS UNPARALLELED folk-blues guitar work, a voice that seems to channel ancient, Appalachian spirits, and near-legendary status in folk-circles, Chris Smither has never been ...

Townes Van Zandt: A Far Cry From Dead

Review by Chris Smith, Performing Songwriter, The, July 1999

STEVE EARLE ONCE gushed, "Townes Van Zandt is the best songwriter in the world, and I'd stand on Bob Dylan's coffee table in my boots ...

Alan Lomax: A Life Less Ordinary

Obituary by Chris Smith, Performing Songwriter, The, September 2002

SUMMING UP ALAN LOMAX'S contributions to folk music in a single magazine article is like trying to list everyone you've ever met on a single ...

Spirit of '69 Woodstock Alive At Falcon Ridge

Comment by Chris Smith, Billboard, August 1999

BLAME IT ON the heat. Blame it on poor security. Blame it on the cause/effect relationship between artist persona and audience behavior. Blame it on ...

The Guiness Fleadh

Report by Chris Smith, Performing Songwriter, The, March 1998

IF YOU HAD said to someone twenty years ago that Ireland was hot, they would have assumed you'd never been, because, truthfully, the place is ...