Happier Blue

CHRIS SMITHER: “Happier Blue” (Demon)

HAPPIER BLUE is definitely not a gratuitous chunk of inauthentic Caucasian blues. If you’re fortunate enough to already be familiar with the man who is credited here with “guitars, vocals and foot” !? (all ten digits of it at that if the clip-clopping of ‘Honeysuckle Dog’ or ‘Time to Spend’ are anything to go by) then you’ll know that any such presumptions would be grossly unjust.

For a start, the addition of violin, saxophone, a fretless four and eight-string bass and keyboards gives a broader base and more sophisticated texture (for some tastes too sophisticated maybe) to Happier Blue than the bare instrumentation of the traditional country blues from which smither’s style predominantly stems.

The fact that the other three covers on the LP are a suitably frenetic rendition of John Hiatt’s paean to electric music, ‘Memphis In The Meantime’, Lowell George’s wry ‘Rock ’n Roll Doctor’ and J. J. Cale’s gentle ‘Magnolia’, as well as also extending the music beyond conventional folk blues strictures, further emphasises that Smither is more than just a social science student wishing to exorcise his bourgeois liberal guilt by indulging in some ‘coloured’ tunes.

It is true to say that Happier Blue, sounding like a mixture of John Martyn, Robbie Robertson and Robert Johnson, ultimately promises more than it delivers. This might be a failure due to the order of the selections rather than anything to do with the music itself. The problem is that the best three numbers are also first up and what follows is, by comparison, somewhat of an anticlimax. It’s a pity, really.

With a little more thought over the pecking list Happier Blue would do itself more justice than it actually does. Nevertheless, on this evidence Chris Smithers is obviously extremely cultivated, even experimental, in the field in which he operates.

• Patrick Brennan