A birthday party, an artists' reunion and a sure-to-be good time is coming to the Brackendale Art Gallery (BAG) on Aug. 7 when blues legend Smiling Jack Smith returns to Canada for a series of shows after living in Spain for the past 12 years.
Funky beats, a five-piece band and Smith's clear and bluesy voice belting out relatable lyrics will reintroduce local audiences to his tunes, including those from his latest CD.
Smith said the evening is to sure to have a celebratory vibe.
"I'll be celebrating my birthday, seeing a ton of old friends and playing some good tunes," said Smith in a phone interview while still in Spain. "I think it'll be a lot of fun."
Smith was born in Jersey City, New Jersey and grew up in Staten Island, New York. Starting out as a tap dancer and singer, he traded in his tap shoes for a guitar at 12 years old and began writing and composing his own songs.
He went from folk singing in the '60s, to Vancouver folk rocker in the '70s and '80s, to country singing down in Florida, to belting out the blues when he returned to New Jersey in the mid '90s. Smith said the change in artistic expression happened organically.
"You have to be open to a certain point and look for good stuff around you," said Smith.
"With the people I was playing with in Vancouver, there was such a variety of great players, each other own different style so I got to play all the different styles with them."
He said becoming a part of the place you live is essential.
"The first thing I did when I moved to Canada is learned how to say 'eh' and eat with a fork in a left hand and knife in the right. And I made it a priority to learn Spanish as soon as I moved to Spain."
While in Vancouver, Smith became a core part of a group that frequented the well-known jazz club The Classical Joint Coffee House. Musicians like Jim Byrnes and poets from around the world performed at the coffee house - and BAG owner Thor Froslev was among those who took it all in.
"A group of artists were playing music at the classical joint back in the very late '60s, early '70s and Smiling Jack Smith was part of it - that's where I met him," said Froslev, who hasn't seen Smith since the early '80s.
Froslev said he's thrilled that Smith will be heading to the BAG for his birthday performance and so will "some of the old gang from The Classical Joint."
"He's 63 years old and he has 50 years of music under his belt," said Froslev. "He's played everything in his time and it's a rare type of musician that can say that."
After so many genres and places Smith says his music is all blues - literally.
"I play blues, but it's not like one kind of blues," he said. "It's like whatever there is that I can fit into that big box they call the blues.
"You don't have to choose a style, you can play all of them. So I try to mix it up a lot and end up playing a bunch of different styles every night because it's all my own tunes that I'm playing."
Most of his Canadian dates will be performed solo, as will the BAG show.
"Lately I've been playing a lot of duo and solo stuff and just enjoying the sort of simplicity," he said.
Smith will have CDs for sale and will have albums to download for audiences as well.
He said he'd rather sell downloads than CDs because they're cheaper and easier to carry around.
"They can bring their USB stick or their laptop and take anywhere from one to five downloads in about seven minutes," he said.
Tickets are $20 and available at The Bookshelf and the Brackendale Art Gallery.
