Chris Smither
William Christopher Smither (born November 11, 1944) is an American folk/blues singer, guitarist, and songwriter. His music draws deeply from the blues, American folk music, modern poets and philosophers.
Early life, influences and education
Smither’s family lived in Ecuador and the Rio Grande Valley in Texas before settling in New Orleans when Chris was three years old. He grew up in New Orleans, and lived briefly in Paris where he and his twin sister Mary Catherine attended French public school. It was in Paris that Smither got his first guitar - one his father brought him from Spain. Shortly after, the family returned to New Orleans where his father taught at Tulane University.
In 1960, Smither and two friends entered and won a folk “Battle of the Bands” at the New Orleans Saenger Theatre. Two years later, Smither graduated from Benjamin Franklin High School in New Orleans and went on to attend the University of the Americas in Mexico City planning to study anthropology. It was there that a friend played Smither the Lightnin' Hopkins' record “Blues in My Bottle”. After one year in Mexico, Smither returned to New Orleans where he attended Tulane for one year and discovered Mississippi John Hurt’s music through the Blues at Newport 1963 album on Vanguard Records. Hurt and Hopkins would become cornerstone influences on Smither’s own music.
Podcasts:
Chris Smither
ALBUMS
- Still On the Levee released: 2014
- Lost and Found released: 2011
- Time Stands Still released: 2009
- Leave the Light On released: 2006
- Honeysuckle Dog released: 2005
- Live as I'll Ever Be released: 2005
- Chris Smither Live at McCabe's Guitar Shop 3/14/03 released: 2004
- Train Home released: 2003
- Drive You Home Again released: 1999
- Happier Blue released: 1993
- Don't It Drag On released: 1972
- It Ain't Easy released:
- Small Revelations released:
- I'm a Stranger Too! / Don't It Drag On released:
- Another Way to Find You released:
- Up on the Lowdown released:
I'm a Stranger Too! / Don't It Drag On
- A Short While Ago
- A Song for Susan
- I Am a Child
- Have You Seen My Baby
- Devil Got Your Man
- Homunculus
- Love You Like a Man
- Lonely Time
- Look Down the Road
- Old Kentucky Home (Turpentine and Dandelion Wine)
- Time to Go Home
- Lonesome Georgia Brown
- Down in the Flood
- I've Got Mine
- Statesboro Blues
- Another Way to Find You
- No Expectations
- Friend of the Devil
- Don't It Drag On
- Every Mother's Son
- Mail Order Mystics
- I Feel the Same
Another Way to Find You
- High Heel Sneakers / Big Boss Man
- Another Way to Find You
- Down in the Flood
- Lonely Time
- Lonesome Georgia Brown
- Statesboro Blues
- Catfish
- Every Mother's Son
- I Got Mine
- Don't It Drag On
- Love You Like a Man
- I Feel the Same
- Friend of the Devil
- Shake Sugaree
- Tulane
- Have You Seen My Baby
- A Song for Susan, Parts One and Two
- Homunculus
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Crocodile Man
by: Chris SmitherMama she raised me on riddles and trances
Fatback, channel-cat, lily white lies
Rocked my cradle in a jimmy-crack fancy
Never met papa and I never asked why
And people say papa wasn't no account anyway
People say papa was a rollin' stone
I turned twenty on the Waccamaw throughway
Headed upriver in the dark alone
Sleepin' with a stranger in a no name town
Thanksgivin' dinner at the Top Hat Lounge
Christmas Eve at the Fantasy Tan
Lord have mercy on the crocodile man
Lord have mercy on the crocodile man
Well I hooked up with a carny, little out of Memphis
Slavin' in a side show, pennies in a jar
Beetle-eyed jokers and hick town princes
Rhinestone rubies and rubber cigars
Wrassled me a gator up in Omaha City
Did me another down in New Orleans
Tangled with the barker, ran off with the kitty
Crawled the Mississippi and I got away clean
I've been sSleepin' with a stranger in a no name town
Thanksgivin' dinner at the Top Hat Lounge
Christmas Eve at the Fantasy Tan
Lord have mercy on the crocodile man
Lord have mercy on the crocodile man
Underneath the levee in a cattail thicket
Down in the shadow of a shady grove
There's a thatched roof risin' from a poke fence picket
White smoke billows from a coal black stove
Inside the house is the hall of mirrors
Inside the mirror is the temple of sin
Inside the temple is the face of mama
And mama she knows where I been
My mama knows exactly where her bad boy been
Been sleepin' with a stranger in a no name town
Thanksgivin' dinner at the Top Hat Lounge
Christmas Eve at the Fantasy Tan
Lord have mercy on the crocodile man
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