Darden Smith Bare & Alive by Sheila Daughtry I think about where I am nowadays,” said Darden Smith, “not where I’m going.” The youthful singer-songwriter is feeling his maturity, and it feels good. “It’s so much easier not to be burdened with youth,” he laughed. Deep Fantastic Blue is Smith’s latest collection, recorded after the slow burn of a divorce. Smith took nine months off to write, and to spend time with his son, Eli. “Kids see the world in such a naive, almost mystical way,” he marveled. Participating as his son explored the world renewed Smith’s perspective. It also taught him patience, a lesson he knew he’d been needing to learn. Many of the songs on Deep Fantastic Blue grew out of Smith’s musings on family ties — ties that support, or ties that tighten and snap. Becoming a father himself has sparked Smith into revisiting his feelings towards his parents and his youth. “Sins of my father coming down on my son,” he sings in “Different Train,” “I just can’t see more damage done.” “You don’t have to be the way you were when you were a kid,” Smith said firmly, “or when you were a young man. You don’t have to be who your parents were — not that I’m knocking my parents. You can change and keep changing.” Deep Fantastic Blue is Smith’s first release in three years. He’s moved from the giant Columbia label to independent Plump Records. Smith’s major label releases were distanced by increasingly polished production. Deep Fantastic Blue is refreshingly bare and alive. “This album is much more revealing and unguarded,” Smith confessed with a chuckle. “I had nothing to lose — it’s not like my record company was going to fire me. “It’s so much easier to tell the truth,” he added. “Not to worry about couching emotions in clever lyrics so that people won’t see directly into me.” Smith’s lyrics have always taken emotional questions head on. But Deep Fantastic Blue is even more intensely personal, with Smith exploring his own dark and hopeful sides, instead of other people’s. The songs are about change, growing up, facing longings and flaws that have dogged you. Smith doesn’t hide from his shadows, and the subject matter is a little weighty. But the melodies are singable, the rhythms punchy and strong. “Some of my favorite records are very dark lyrically, but the music is beautiful,” explained Smith. “Elvis Costello, Bruce Springsteen, Peter Gabriel. Music that gets your feet tapping, and your mind and heart going as well. “Really, this album is about new beginnings. There are more positive songs, starting songs. It’s easy to take this kind of stuff and make it really down and maudlin. But I’m a real optimist,” he said warmly. “Life is good. The good stuff is good and the bad stuff is good.” That’s what Smith’s been saying all along. Deep Fantastic Blue is a natural progression from Smith’s independent debut, Native Soil [Watermelon] (recorded in 1986 and re-released on CD by Watermelon Records in 1992) a rangy bunch of short stories set to music, very much a part of his Texas setting. 1988’s self-titled album [CBS/Epic 40938] marked his turn to a major label, though he was already too pop for country and too twangy for pop. Smith carved raw longing into the irresistibly catchy “Want You By My Side.” His original “Little Maggie” sounds like a bluesy bluegrass standard. Smith moved on to Trouble No More [CBS/Columbia, 45289] in 1990. It’s arguably his most completely realized recording, every song a sharply etched sculpting of fallen love, changing realizations, resignation and raw hope. Smith, and the men and women he sings about, are all survivors of life’s battles. But the cycle of endings and beginnings rarely sounds so catchy. Smith’s wisdom lies in everyday reality. Maybe no song has captured the restless frustration of a family man with wanderlust as truly as “Midnight Train.” Smith celebrates the sacrifice and bravery of everyday heroes, like the weary office worker battling traffic and bills in “Love Me Like a Soldier.” His songs are personal, but the emotions and the characters who inhabit them are universal. “I like to read obituaries,” Smith chuckled. “They’re like little biographies. Ordinary people are amazing. Ordinary acts can be very heroic. If you’re paying attention, you can do incredible things with your life.” Smith’s raw, everyman’s voice enhances his music’s impact, with a windblown, breathy urgency. It’s distinctive and honest, burnished by his Texas twang. But his tunes are more tangy than twangy. His songs have a natural walking, driving, swinging rhythm. You can sit and ponder them, or you can dance. Alone with his guitar, Smith can silence a small concert hall, or hold his own in the midst of a noisy rock festival. Smith’s sound has as much in common with Big Star as Jimmie Dale Gilmore. The British pop edge is no accident. Just this year Compass Records reissued Evidence, the 1989 album Smith recorded with British pop artist Boo Hewerdine [1996, 7 4232 2]. Hewerdine was then in a band called The Bible; Smith had just come out with his first major label recording. The pair were brought together to collaborate, and truly hit it off. Evidence is evidence of their strong creative spark, a relentless mix of twangy pop, or maybe catchy country folk. Smith’s twang and Hewerdine’s faintly proper British tinge compliment each other, weave together and spur each other on. It’s ironic that the zestily upbeat Evidence is out at the same time as Smith’s deeply shadowed latest. Or maybe it’s appropriate — the abandon of youth and the hard-earned wisdom of adulthood colliding in the record bin. There may be more common threads than not. The lead song on Evidence is “All I Want (Is Everything).” The closing song on Deep Fantastic Blue is “Hunger.” Deep Fantastic Blue includes two intriguing poems in the CD booklet. The words are striking, but they’re not lyrics. Smith explained that when he got ready to record the songs he got a notebook, and wrote the title of a song at the top of each page. Before he recorded that song, he did a little stream of consciousness writing until he recaptured the emotional place he’d been in when he wrote the tune. “But when he realized the straight line of his narrative had become circles, spirals and mazes, weariness came. He laid down his bag, picking up a new cup full of wine.” “A boy falls down in the forest, cries out through the leaves over his head to some love. A man closes the door of an office, sinks down in to his chair and calls to the same.” “In the night, to both, comes a stillness filling that pain. Quenching their thirst they open to it, fulfilled.” Deep Fantastic Blue has the feel of cleansing. Songs forged through love and pain and growing. Smith opens to his thirst to express himself, and quenches it by sharing. This is the full text from the current issue of Dirty Linen The Dirty Linen Pages are all copyright ©1997 by Dirty Linen, Ltd, Baltimore, MD