Singer-songwriter Chris Smither returns to Santa Cruz – Santa Cruz Sentinel

Chris Smither will perform at the Kuumbwa Jazz Centre on Sunday. (Courtesy of Jo Chattman)

Even though 2020 and the COVID-19 shutdowns are a few years ago, I still find it fascinating to ask musicians how they spent that foggy time. Some formed bands or wrote songs. For others, like songwriter Chris Smither, it was just the opposite. “The ironic thing about it,” he said in a recent phone interview, “is that I thought I was going to get a lot of songs done. But I didn’t get any.”

For the uninitiated, Chris grew up in New Orleans and first learned to play songs on his mother’s ukulele. He soon picked up the guitar and discovered the blues through influences like Mississippi John Hurt and Lightnin’ Hopkins. He developed his own distinctive blues style and is now on tour recording his 20th album, “All About the Bones.” Early in Chris Smither’s career, folk singer Erik Von Schmidt suggested he spend a summer in Cambridge, Massachusetts, exploring the music scene. “It was like getting advice from the voice of God,” he said. Nearly 60 years later, Cambridge is still Chris’ home. “I guess I’ll be sticking around for a while,” he added.

Going back to the 2020s, he explained: “What I find funny is that there’s this big hole in my life. And in everyone’s life back then. It was a very strange time. It’s almost empty. It’s just this formless, shapeless time.”

I was talking to Chris about how many of us musicians were doing livestreams from home during COVID and thought that maybe we could continue to do that once things opened back up. But once we could, everyone agreed, “NO, let’s get back out there and play for real people!”

Chris laughed and agreed, “No, it didn’t take long, did it?” And he’s back on the road, playing this Sunday night against Kuumbwa in Santa Cruz for the first time since 2019.

What works really well thematically on “All About the Bones” is that the songs were written in quick succession. “The eight songs that are mine were all written within three months of each other. They’re related. They’re all littermates,” he said. When Chris started the project, he had most of the guitar parts down, but “it was still difficult to get to those songs (lyrically). I sat down with my producer, David ‘Goodie’ Goodrich. He has a way of just cracking oysters. I don’t know how he does it, but things happen when he’s in the room. And the songs all came out in a rush.”

Fittingly, “time” and “aging” are themes that run through “All About the Bones,” coming just after 2020, with its references to the Grim Reaper and the graveyard. There’s also a fitting cover of Tom Petty’s “Time to Move On” that closes the record.

“I tend to focus on time and changes over time,” Chris said. “It’s just a theme that runs through all of my songs.” Plus, he just turned 80. “I’m getting much closer to the end than the middle,” he added. “So you tend to think about those things.”

Note: Chris Smither’s show at the Kuumbwa Jazz Center this Sunday night is sold out. Tickets are still available for his performance on Thursday, July 11 at The Freight and Salvage in Berkeley. For more information, visit smither.com/tickets.

Michael Gaither is a local songwriter, DJ at radio station KPIG, and in a previous life was a writer for The Santa Cruz Sentinel.