Folk singer Chris Smither started at the very beginning to celebrate his 50th anniversary in the music business.
The prolific performer’s double-CD retrospective, “Still on the Levee,” begins with the track “Devil Got Your Man,” which was the first song Smither, 69, ever wrote.
He was 19 at the time, and aspiring to be in the same boat as Bob Dylan, who was already on his way to folk-legend status with a couple of albums under his belt.
“All the singer-songwriter stuff was beginning,” Smither said in a phone interview last week from Massachusetts. “This was the wave of people who were going to make it or do it as a living.”
Over several days, Smither churned out the powerful bluesy piece, which would launch a career that would span five decades.
To Smither’s surprise, “Devil Got Your Man” held up nicely when he went to record it for “Still on the Levee.”
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“What does a 19-year-old know about devils?” he asked. “I didn’t know what I was talking about, but I still managed to not paint myself into a corner. It is wide-open enough that it can be sung by a more informed individual and be convincing.”
In addition to “Still on the Levee,” a tribute album titled “Link of Chain,” featuring many of Smither’s contemporaries covering his work, including Loudon Wainwright III and Mary Gauthier, came out last month. Smither will perform tracks from both albums when he plays the Hotel Congress Copper Hall next Thursday as part of the Rhythm & Roots concert series.
Congratulations on your 50th. Why celebrate with a retrospective? “David Goodrich, my producer, talked me into this project. He said, ‘This is a big milestone. You’ve been writing songs for 50 years. You are turning 70. Don’t you want to take a look at what you’ve done?’ To give him credit, I never had. I always just go day to day. I write songs and do the next record.”
You had 50 years of material to choose from. How did you decide? “Goody listened to everything. When you get to my original songs, there are only about 100 of them. He narrowed those down to the 50 he thought were exemplary. He is much better at that than I am. He has the outside view.
“If it had been up to me, I would have probably picked my favorites or fan favorites. It would have wound up being a very ordinary ‘Best of’ release. He was more interested in charting the curve or the course of a career.”
‘Devil Got Your Man’ took you several days to write. Do they come easier these days? “They take longer now, sometimes much longer. I get into songwriting cycles. Once I get tuned up and the muscle tone going, they can happen quite quickly. It is a long process for the most part getting a chord progression and some nice guitar licks. I can be fooling around with those for months. I always have eight or nine songs going at once. When I run dry with one, I move on to another.”
How did you feel about a tribute album in your honor? “I was crazy about it. You can ask a musician, any musician how they feel about somebody else doing their song. It doesn’t matter if it is a terrible version, they are going to love it. The fact that somebody sat down and adopted one of your children is the greatest testimonial you can receive. It says that the song has legs. It can walk across the street by itself.”
