Having played rockabilly since the mid-'70's, Smith has seen a huge increase in the style's popularity over the past 25 years with mixed results. Maybe because for 13 years we did go out there on a regular basis." "Fortunately, we're able to sell enough records to make it worthwhile for everyone. "At this particular point in time, we don't have the great desire to tour," says Smith. Unfortunately for fans outside of southern New England, Smith stopped touring nationally in 1991 and today confines his performances to the Providence area, with an occasional show in Boston or New York City a pity given Smith's tremendous onstage charisma and his rock-solid band, including Bill Coover and Jerry Miller, one of the truly great guitar tag teams working in rockabilly today. Sometimes you just feel better letting things take their course." "I think the songs I wrote for this particular record came out better this way. Most every one of those songs on the record, other than the cover (Eddie Zack's "I'm Gonna Roll and Rock"), were (based on) some kind of true experience."
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'Sometimes' is about a conversation I had with my mother after my father left. 'Papa Told Mama' was about my father leaving. 'The Window' was written about the first time I saw Mary (Smith's wife).
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"Other than 'Cruel Red,' which was a real car that I did have when I was in high school, these (songs) are things that really happened. "What I said then was true," says Smith today, when asked about his original plans for the new album. Dave Alvin said to me one time that your themes begin to mature as you do." In a 1999 interview, Smith said that as he was getting older, it was harder to put himself "in the position of being 19 and not having a waist and having tons of hair. We don't hear Elvis Tat every note, or Scotty Moore, or Cliff Gallup or Paul Burlison. "As time has gone by we kind of rely on ourselves now. "In my earlier days, I was maybe more influenced by the guys that started the whole thing," says Smith, 56, in a telephone interview from his home in Rhode Island. If a comparison has to be made, think equal parts Chris Isaak and Dave Alvin-era Blasters (a particular favorite of Smith's). Whereas the Flying Fish album owed a sizable debt to '50's rockabilly (even including a then-rare guest appearance from Rock 'n' Roll Trio guitarist Paul Burlison), the new disc is far more contemporary in approach.
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Interestingly, the 1989 release and the new album - though both clearly rockabilly - are rather different in approach. "Cruel Red" marks a return to rockabilly for Smith, a genre in which he had not recorded since a self-titled 1989 album on the Flying Fish label, though Smith and his band, the Rockabilly Planet, have always based their live shows around a primarily rockabilly repertoire. In fact, "Cruel Red," released on the New Jersey-based Run Wild label that had also released "Can't Help Myself," is a rockabilly album. Two years later, that follow-up emerged and, as it turns out, it's not the Scountry album expected. IFollowing the release of his 1999 straight-up country album "Can't Help Myself," he initially planned on following it up with another country album. Case in point.Providence-based rockabilly artist Jack Smith.
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KIt's funny how an artist sometimes plans Hon making one album and ends up making a different one instead.