James Coberly Smith Cocomo CD

He wasn't made for these times.But the 21st century is damn lucky to have a guy like him around.Because he writes and performs songs that belong to the ages; when they swing, they swing with the authority of real swing.When they're blue, they're about the deepest darkest blue you're going to hear.And when they're happy, the happiness is real, and it's infectious. So much of the music of modern times is about using mechanical means to imitate sounds, to make what isn't real seem like it is.His music is anything but that.In fact, it's the exact opposite.It's about the timeless truth.It's about what's real: real people and real love and real voices singing real harmonies with real acoustic guitars and piano and percussion and hands clapping, and nothing is programmed here, and nothing is fake. I remember the first time I heard him.It was in the black & white corridor of an old, haunted office building on Hollywood Boulevard, just down the hall from where Philip Marlowe should have had his office, if he didn't.And there stood Coberly, a happy man in a big hat with an old black 12-string strapped around his shoulders.And he started playing.Only he didn't just play this song, he inhabited it.And maybe I just imagined this, but as things started heating up I'm pretty sure I saw some blue smoke curling off the strings of his guitar, and I also think at one point I actually saw him bend back the neck of his guitar like it was a willow tree while cooking up an astounding, bluesy frenzy, working that slide of his and getting that great silvery sheen of metal on steel.And I could swear I saw blue sparks flying from his fingers as strangers started emerging from behind previously closed doors to find out what all the hubbub was about, and soon they were swinging right along with him and clapping their hands, and I can't be sure of any of this, but I know I'm not the only one who felt that entire building rotate at least once before it all was over.And for weeks, people throughout this building could be heard asking each other, "Hey! Who was that guy in the hat? That guy with the 12-string -- Who was that guy?" It's a question I'd encounter many more times, as I'd hear him play in assorted clubs and cafes throughout the greater and lesser Los Angeles region: "Hey! Who was that guy in the hat?" And I would tell them.He goes by the name James Coberly Smith.Born and raised in Racine, Wisconsin, not far from Green Bay.A virtuoso 12-string slide-guitarist.And a very funny, jovial fellow. And that's who I thought he was.And I wasn't wrong, but I didn't have the whole picture.Because for the first many times I heard him play, he played only instrumentals, and so I had no idea what a fine songwriter and singer he was.It was at one of Jeff Gold's great Sunday afternoon song-circles and pasta-fests a few years back that I first heard one of his songs."Valley Of The Kings." And the room went silent.And instantly he inhabited the song, just as he'd inhabited that instrumental the first time I heard him.And every note he sang, and every note he played on the guitar, and every word, was right. And then I heard some of the other songs.Beautifully sad ones.Bright, whimsical ones.Deeply romantic ballads like "If You Leave Before Me." Hilarious, swinging songs such as "Flypaper Highway." Sprightly, jaunty love songs as effervescent as love itself, like "Ain't Got Money." Songs that swagger with barroom bluster and bravado, such as "Bad Ideas." Sunny, luminous anthems of undying love, such as "Mary Ann." Songs of desolation and dark remorse, as in "Where Did My Hope Go." Songs of haunting admonition and wistful mystery such as "Mabel." And it was all good.There was nothing phony or contrived, nothing there just for effect.And when so much of modern music contains nothing but effects, that's no small achievement. Then I heard him playing one of his frequent shows with Severin Browne, in which the two amiably back each other up, and I recognized Coberly's secre