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JAN SMITH, Charlottesville, VA |
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Written by Jedd Ferris
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Monday, 23 July 2007 |
 THE NEXT DOWN THE MOUNTAIN
Stop looking in Nashville: The next incarnation of Gillian Welch is hiding out in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Central Virginia. Jan Smith pens emotional songs of the southern landscape and simple life of local folks from her home base in the rural outskirts of Charlottesville. Smith’s first memory of bluegrass involves getting spanked by her father when she was four; she was caught sneaking away from the family campsite at Bill Monroe’s Bean Blossom
Bluegrass Festival. “I was supposed to be taking a nap,” Smith says. “Who can say whether I was drawn to the music. or to the sheer energy of the festival itself?” She delivers her stark front-porch stories behind pure string sounds through a voice that’s antiquely stunning with modern hues. On her Landslide Records debut, 29 Dances, Smith proves it’s all there for her to become an Americana mainstay, especially as the ageless conviction of her tunes molds so well with the backing support of some of Music City’s best pickers, including Mark Fain (Ricky Skaggs) and Byron House (Sam Bush), who polish the disc in all the right places. “I work out emotions and try to make sense of experiences through songwriting,” she says. It’s only a matter of time before she’s invited down from the mountain to become a modern-day Opry darling. www.honeybirdmusic.com
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 24 July 2007 )
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