Jeff Smith Human Wilderness CD

Jeff Smith and "The Human Wilderness" In a world increasingly defined by web sites and sound bites, it becomes more difficult to access those lost and disappearing corners of America. It is from such hidden and obscure places that Washington, D.C. based artist/writer Jeff Smith emerges with the release of his debut CD entitled "The Human Wilderness" on Acetate Records. With this twelve song, self-penned collection, Jeff explores the dark, light and the in between of the small town America. With this initial offering, Jeff Smith takes a his place alongside the like of Lyle Lovett, John Prine and Iris Dement as an interpreter of that vanishing America beyond the franchised glitter of another Planet Hollywood or the digital slickness of yet another mass market advertising campaign. Think of a John Sayles movie or a Richard Ford shortstory and you will most likely have identified the essence of a Jeff Smith song. Jeff’s music is a reflection of his roots and background . His songs are bounded at one extreme by memories of growing up in a small Ohio River town of West Virginia. On the other is the hip and diverse Washington D.C. music scene which has spawned the likes of Mary Chapin Carpenter, Nils Lofgren, and The Seldom Scene. It all adds up to asinger/songwriter with plenty to say and a distinctive and unforgettable way of saying it. The songs of The Human Wilderness conjure up images of coal barges on the Ohio; rusted out cars swallowed up by vines and underbrush in an overgrown pasture; the dreams and fears of a rowdy river town that haunts, holds of drives its sons and daughters to find meaning in their lives in the big cities of the east of IndustrialMidwest. The CD is an amalgam of eclectic styles that take the listener on a strange and compelling tour of rural America as seen through the eyes of boys named Danny and girls named Lisa and Daddies named Cecil. Imagine a blending of 50’s rock n’ roll, acoustic slide guitar, retro-country, and electrified folk music and you have The Human Wilderness. Think of Steve Earle, Tom Petty, J.J. Cale, John Prine, and the ghosts of Hank all drinking beer on an early summer evening in the back of a small West Virginia grocery store with a 1930’s steel girder bridge for a back drop. These are the stories from The Human Wilderness.