In their recent appearance, beloved singer-songwriters Loudon Wainwright III and Chris Smither, leading lights of the folk music for more than 50 years, graced The Birchmere stage with their brilliant compositions and unique, sharp wits. Each playing for about an hour, they delighted the audience with favorites from their extensive songbooks as well as more recent material.
Both Wainwright and Smither come from intellectually inclined families. Loudon’s father was a journalist who wrote for Life magazine and published some short fiction in his early years, while Chris’s parents were academics specializing in foreign languages. They share a literate approach to songwriting; at the end of “Family Vacation,” Loudon quotes Dostoevsky’s famous opening line from Anna Karenina, “All unhappy families are unhappy in their own way.” “In The Bardo,” on Chris’s latest album, All About the Bones, takes inspiration from George Saunders’s experimental novel Lincoln In The Bardo, about a liminal state in Tibetan Buddhism.
Of course, there are differences, too. Wainwright grew up in the northeast, Smither in New Orleans. This is reflected in their sound; while both are considered folk artists, Chris is as much a bluesman. At the start of his Birchmere set on Jan. 29, Smither mentioned how he’ll sometimes have an idea for a song, but he’ll think, “I can’t a write a song about that. I don’t think Loudon’s ever had that thought. I love it.”
Wainwright took the stage first, saying, “They asked me if I wanted an intro. I figured you guys would sort out who’s who,” before kicking off his set with “Grown Man.” Between songs, he shared that he’d driven down from his home in Suffolk County, New York earlier that day, then played “Heaven.” “I got some family material for you tonight,” he said, then played “The Picture,” which was an inspired by a photograph of him and his sister as children.
After this, we got the first oddball moment of the evening, as Loudon explained — and demonstrated — how he’d tucked his shirt in the back, but left it untucked in the front. He continued his set with “Family Vacation,” after which he plugged his merchandise, including “some terrific Bolivian flake cocaine.” Loudon also praised The Birchmere, saying, “The sound in this place is always terrific.” (Loudon is also the patriarch of a musical family that includes Rufus and Martha Wainwright and Lucy Roche.)
Watch Loudon Wainwright III perform “Family Vacation” live on YouTube:
The next song, “Just A Cat,” about losing his beloved Timmy (who was actually a girl), hit me pretty hard; I get emotional about animals. After hitting us in the feels, he said, “I guess I’ve gotta cheer you up.” Introducing his cover of Tom Lehrer’s “Oedipus Rex,” he spoke of his love for the great musical satirist, and how he got to meet his hero. (My mother, who is a few years younger than Loudon, was also a Lehrer fan, and I heard his records as a kid.)
Wainwright’s set was punctuated by readings from his memoir, including one about his experiences with the Grammy Awards, which included losing twice to posthumous albums by Steve Goodman before finally winning for High, Wide, and Handsome: The Charlie Poole Project. He treated the audience to the title cut, then finished with a couple of sings I think might be new, one that referenced the Greek myth of Icarus and another on the state of country music.
Following a 15-minute intermission, Smither took the stage and played a set that featured a number of songs from All About the Bones. He talked about how he struggled to write these songs and was starting to run up against the scheduled dates for recording before he had a sort of breakthrough. As he often does, he mused on the writing process, which he described as drawing on a part of your brain you’re not really in touch with. Fortunately, he produced an excellent set of songs, which, he proudly shared, one critic felt were among his best. “I Still Believe In You” is a beautiful, mature love song, while “Down in Thibodeaux” was inspired by a childhood neighbor, Boudreaux, whose first name he never knew. Other than the name, it’s pure fiction, but is “spiritually true.”
Watch Chris Smither perform “Down in Thibodaux” live on YouTube:
Smither opened with the melancholy “What Might Have Been.” He described “Don’t Call Me Stranger” as a “song my mother would hate.” (I can relate: my mother didn’t finish reading my first published story. At least she showed enough interest to look at, which my dad never did.) He returned to Bones with “Close the Deal;” “Small Revelations” and “Train Home” stunned me, as they always do, with their poetic beauty. Chris introduced “No Love Today” as “the vegetable song,” which is apt but sells it short.
In exciting news, Smither shared that he appears in a recent short film, “The Singers,” inspired by a short story by the Russian writer Ivan Turgenev, which is nominated for an Oscar (I should have bet the over on Russian writer references at 1.5, but alas, I did not. “I don’t want to become an actor,” he said, “I just want to be in another movie.”
Smither rounded out his set with “Leave The Light On,” which got a standing ovation, prompting him to do “Sittin’ On Top of the World” to send the audience home. It was, for lovers of great writing, a truly exceptional evening. Smither in particular remains one of my favorites, not just for his lyrics, but also for his melodies and guitar playing.
Saw Loudon at City Winery during the pandemic. He cracked that there were more servers than audience members which was the truth. He is great, but Chris Smithers is mesmorizing.