Chris Smither & Tim O’Brien with Jan Fabricius
The Center for Arts in Natick (TCAN) 14 Summer Street, Natick, MABorn in Miami, during World War II, Chris Smither grew up in New Orleans where he first started playing music as a child. The son of a Tulane University professor, he was taught the rudiments of instrumentation by his uncle on his mother’s ukulele. “Uncle Howard,” Smither says, “showed me that if you knew three chords, you could play a lot of the songs you heard on the radio. And if you knew four chords, you could pretty much rule the world.” With that bit of knowledge under his belt, he was hooked. By the early ’90s, Smither’s steady nationwide touring and regular release of consistently acclaimed albums cemented his reputation as one of the finest acoustic musicians in the country. In October 2020, More From The Levee, the follow up to the 50-year career retrospective Still on the Levee, was released. "Bathed in the flickering glow of passing headlights and neon bar signs, Smither’s roots are as blue as they come. There is plenty of misty Louisiana and Lightnin’ Hopkins in Smither’s weathered singing and unhurried picking. So fine." -Rolling Stone Born in Wheeling, West Virginia on March 16, 1954, Grammy winning singer songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Tim O’Brien grew up singing in church and in school. Gaining attention in the 1980’s with Colorado’s Hot Rize, O’Brien scored a country hit with Kathy Mattea’s cover of his song Walk the Way the Wind Blows in 1986. Soon artists like Nickel Creek and Garth Brooks also covered his songs. Collaborators include his sister Mollie O’Brien, old time musician Dirk Powell and songwriter Darrell Scott, as well as Steve Earle, Bill Frisell, Mark Knopfler and Sturgill Simpson. O’Brien formed his own record label, Howdy Skies Records, in 1999, and launched the digital … Read More »
