Description
Release Date: 2018
Label: Signature Sounds
Track List
Disc One
1 The Blame’s On Me 2:53
2 Maybellene 2:56
3 Down To The Sound 3:49
4 Nobody Home 4:00
5 By The Numbers 4:21
6 Change Your Mind 3:12
7 Everything On Top 3:18
8 Sittin’ On Top Of The World 3:31
9 Too Bad, So Sad 4:09
10 Lower The Humble 5:10
Disc Two
1 She Said She Said 2:54
2 Everything On Top 3:04
3 Down To The Sound 2:59
4 Nobody Home 5:44
5 Change Your Mind 4:08
6 By The Numbers 4:22
Personnel
Acoustic Guitar – Matt Lorenz (tracks: 2-1, 2-5)
Bass Drum – David Goodrich (tracks: 1-5 )
Drums, Percussion – Billy Conway (tracks: 1-1 to 1-10, 2-2 to 2-5)
Electric Guitar – David Goodrich (tracks: 1-1, 1-3, 1-6 to 1-8, 1-10, 2-2 to 2-5), Matt Lorenz (tracks: 2-2, 2-4)
Guitar, Vocals – Chris Smither
Kalimba – David Goodrich (tracks: 1-10, 2-4)
Organ – Matt Lorenz (tracks: 1-2)
Percussion – David Goodrich (tracks: 1-1)
Piano – David Goodrich (tracks: 1-2 to 1-4,, 1-9, 1-10), Matt Lorenz (tracks: 1-5, 1-7, 1-9, 1-10)
Violin – Matt Lorenz (tracks: 1-1 to 1-4, 1-6, 1-8 to 1-10)
Vocals – Matt Lorenz (tracks: 1-1, 1-2, 1-6, 2-1, 2-2, 2-4, 2-5)
Notes
Chris Smither spent a fair chunk of time in the mid-2010s looking back, culminating in Still on the Levee, a two-disc set from 2014 that found the singer/songwriter revisiting songs he recorded in the past. Arriving four years later, Call Me Lucky functions as something of an answer to that aesthetic, finding the singer/songwriter living squarely in the present. He opens the album with the lively blues shuffle “The Blame’s on Me,” which is quickly followed by a minor-key rendition of Chuck Berry’s “Maybellene,” and he effectively sets the pace for the rest of the album. As Call Me Lucky rolls on — the album proper is ten tracks, but there are six additional “B-Sides” featuring alternate takes of songs on the album, plus an introspective version of the Beatles’ “She Said She Said” — Smither adds some slower, gentler touches (highlighted by the lovely “By the Numbers”), but he retains this same sense of immediacy. By playing so directly and simply — the album isn’t unadorned, there are additional harmonies and guitars, yet it feels like it is — Chris Smither creates a bracing, intimate record, one that feels filled with earned truths.
