“The singer-songwriter imperative is weakened but still with us, providing new voices and nonvoices each year . . .”
— Richard Reinhardt
Once upon time, as a DJ at a college station, I played quite a few singer-songwriters, but soon discovered that a) I couldn’t tell one artist from the next, b) couldn’t remember the melodies of the songs, c) couldn’t stand the navel-gazing lyrics, and d) found the production and arrangements about as exciting as stale Saltines. This, however, proved most true of the Nanci Griffith/John Gorka, post-1980 singer-songwriters who crowded coffeehouses of Boston. I loved the earlier stuff — from the late ’60s and early ’70s — like Laura Nyro, John Prine, and Joni Mitchell. The production on an album like Eli and the Thirteenth Confession drew from pop, soul, and rock, and still sounds fresh; and the sharp sarcasm of early Prine songs like “Everybody” and “Great Compromise” remains clever without being cloying or derivative. Even a somewhat more mainstream writer like James Taylor looks pretty hip compared to his spiritual children.
Part of the problem, it seems, wasn’t that there was anything particularly wrong with the genre. Only that movements within genres grow stale after a few years. Innovation becomes codified, styles ripped off. Even the best and the brightest in a genre burnout or lose their steam. Jackson Browne, after all, went from singing “Doctor My Eyes” to “Lawyer’s in Love”.
Luckily, new artists like Rose Smith come along with albums like Dawn Raiding and turn boring clichés inside out to create something fresh. It isn’t that she doesn’t sound like a singer-songwriter. She does. But like a number of other innovators — Stew and Chuck Prophet — she draws from pop and rock, breaking the country-roots sound so dominate in recordings by Mark Erelli, Ellis Paul, and a dozen other singer-songwriters from Texas. It’s as though Smith has said: “It’s okay to have a musical vision as well as a poetic one.” If you like, you can decipher the words on Dawn Raiding, but if you’re not up to analyzing Smith’s songs about self-discovery, you can just sit back and enjoy the lush music.
A rich soundscape of voices and instruments envelop the listener as the title song opens the album. A drum track kicks in, adding a slow, steady rhythm that underpins a wash of synthesizer/electric piano. Producer Ski Oakenfull also generates ambiance by multi-tracking Smith’s voice to create an ethereal echo that floats above the carefully layered instruments. From “Life Changes” to “Getting Away with It” to “Innocent”, this atmospheric approach fuses the album into a stylistic whole. The addition of horns on “Dawnraiding” and Donovan’s “Get They Bearings” evokes late Steely Dan (think “Babylon Sisters” with less decadence). Some may find the similar feel of the material stifling, but Smith also has a good ear for melody and her voice, even on lesser pieces, is mesmerizing.
Lyrically, Smith is never compelled to pile words on top of words to prove what a smart writer she is. In this way, she sometimes reminds me of Beth Orton. On “Sweetest Decline” from Central Reservation, Orton weaves a spare lyric into a rich atmosphere of sound, relaying her message with emotion. Likewise, Smith carefully interlaces her lyrics into Oakenfull’s sonically filled soundtrack. Phrases like “jump into the deep” repeat themselves, merging and then emerging from a dense setting of horns, synthesizers, and drums. The titles themselves, “Life Changes”, “Into the Deep”, and “First Alive” celebrate new beginnings, and Smith’s musical vision mirrors this awakening.
This combination of a lyrical vision with a musical one gives Smith the needed edge over the dozens of other singer-songwriters that battle for bookings in Austin lounges. When I listen to a number of these poets with guitars of the Griffith/Gorka axis, I’m reminded of something Norman Mailer once said: be careful when you dig deep down inside yourself — you might come out your own asshole. Somewhere, somehow, in the midst of showing how well they could write poetry, analyze relationships, and get in touch with their inner child, the singer-songwriter forgot about the music. Without melodies, innovative arrangements, and a production that perks up the ears, a song just isn’t much of a song. Rose Smith engages the listener at all levels on Dawn Raiding, making the album smart, tuneful, and fun.