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Aged eighty this year with five-and-a-half decades of LPs behind him, Smither sounds as good, maybe better than ever. The deft guitar-picking and floorboard-stomping are still there. So are his fine songs with their wry, wise, trenchant words, timeless melodies and languid ash-and-gravel voice. It opens with the title track, featuring a visit from the Grim Reaper – sparse folk-blues with an aptly skeletal arrangement from a small but perfect ensemble of electric guitar, drum, harmony singer and moody lone saxophone. There’s a great feel to the LP, like it was recorded in the dead of night in an old jazz bar beside a graveyard in New Orleans. There are two covers – Eliza Gilkyson’s lovely Calm Before The Storm; Tom Petty’s Time To Move On, the album closer – and eight originals, whose highlights include Completion, Down In Thibodaux, and beautiful ballad Still Believe In You.
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Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Campbell's Tavern, Cloughanover,Headford, Galway, Ireland
Tickets
