Strumming Home: Matt Smith’s Warm Return to his Roots

Matt Smith has been a star here for so long that his light shines big and bright whenever he returns to play here. He’s been deep in the heart of Texas since 2009, and was in New York City from 1994 to 2009. “After spending 15 years in NYC, and 14 years in Austin, the capital district is still my hometown,” the guitarist, recording artist and teacher said last week. “I have so many great friends here.”

He plays Friday, Oct. 6 at Putnam Place; Saturday, Oct. 7 at Peckham’s Place and Sunday, Oct. 8 at the Black Bear Americana Music Festival.

Growing up in Clifton Park, Smith attended Shenendehowa High School, then lived in Schenectady, Albany and East Greenbush. Shenendehowa’s Charlie Seymour was his first guitar teacher.

“Growing up in the 70’s, I was inspired by the music I heard on the radio,” Smith said, noting Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert and the Midnight Special were big influences. Once old enough to get into bars, he loved seeing regional bands including Harpy, Talas, and 805. 

Smith’s first real band was Seastone with Jim and Gene Guarino (RIP) and Elizabeth Berliner. Then came busy tenures with his own regional bands Interstate (1979-85), E.B. Jebb (1985-1988), then the Matt Smith Band which, he said, “started playing around town from 1988 until I left for New York City in 1994 and is still active as the New York version of Matt Smith’s World!” (Smith also leads an Austin version.)

In New York, Smith put it all together: the confident performing skills of a seasoned road warrior, the honed playing technique that made him a valuable recording studio player, articulate songwriting and tunesmith chops, and on-the-board acumen as engineer and producer. He was busy, he said, “playing shows, doing session work and performing clinics for Ovation, Hamer and Takamine guitars around the U.S. Canada and Europe.”

Smith started visiting Austin in 1991 when his parents moved there. “I moved there in 2009 to be around for them,” he said, “and get away from NYC and try a new music scene.”

Austin’s scene welcomed him on its own pay-your-dues terms. “Austin was a really friendly, vibrant city filled with places to play,” he said. “It took a bit to get in, just like NYC—there’s a hierarchy, just like anywhere…The difference was the sheer number of venues!”

He recalled, “I had been playing Austin regularly throughout my visits.” Smith said, “Brian Mitchell (Levon Helm’s Midnight Ramblers, The Weight Band) and I had played regularly in the city…We, we formed The Monstas, which morphed into the Austin Matt Smith’s World, and still performs in Austin.”

In Austin, he’s producer and engineer of 6 String Ranch audio and video studio and event center (it has produced more than 400 songs), and is 6 String Ranch Music Studio Director of Phoenix Academy Austin, a residential drug and alcohol rehabilitation facility for young people. He plays recording sessions and teaches through instruction books and online.

The New York Matt Smith’s World he’ll lead here grew from the Matt Smith Band. “I’m really looking forward to coming home for the shows,” he said. Tony Perrino, keyboards; Pete Sweeney, drums; Chris Peck, bass; Brian Melick, percussion; and Charlie Tokarz, sax and flute are “the same guys I’ve been playing with since 1988!”

He explained, “We added Brian Melick and Charlie Tokarz in 1994 for the ‘Delta Radio’ album, and have played sporadically ever since…These guys are like brothers to me.”

“One good rehearsal and it all comes back together again,” said Smith, praising their mastery and diligence. “I fly in, we do one long rehearsal, then hit the stage. Since they played on so much of this album – ‘Into the Light’ – and my first 4 albums, I know they’ll always kill it!” 

Smith’s earliest albums fit club-able blues, country and southern rock slots, and he’s grown more ambitions and versatile over time.

“Into the Light” boasts both reach and depth, and several kinds of fun. My favorite track “Why Can’t We Have a Good Time?” is hard-hitting kaleidoscopic funk on the border between comically exaggerated petulance and a for-real invitation to get way down.

The album follows the well-received “Being Human” (2020, pandemic year one) and an ambitious eight-album look-back project. It’s retrospective in upbeat musical flavors, but realistic in measuring present-day stresses: his mom’s passing last year, the pandemic’s isolation.

Led by the redemption blues “Still Not Dead” and its upbeat “Shine on” despite-it-all chorus, it’s also exorcism via dancefloor, as in “Good Time” and the New Orleans slide-guitar, piano-pump, sax-roar rapture “My Baby Likes to Ya Ya” – complete with pan drums. Smith is a familiar voice from hundreds of area gigs, but he’s saying new things. He recorded “Into the Light” both in his Austin studio and here with the New York Matt Smith World band playing with him Oct. 6-8.

Matt Smith World plays Friday, Oct. 6 at Putnam Place (63 Putnam St., Saratoga Springs). 8 p.m. doors, 9 p.m. show. $10. 518-886-9585 https://putnamplace.com/

Smith and Joe Roy Jackson headline Saturday, Oct. 7 at Peckham’s Place (7 N. Reynolds St., Scotia) with Ed Young, George Boone, Tommy Boink, Austin, and Steve Candlen. 4 p.m. No cover. 518-382-8629 https://peckhamsplace.com/

And Matt Smith World plays Sunday, Oct. 8 at 2 pm. at the Black Bear Americana Music Fest at the Goshen Fairgrounds (116 Old Middle St., Goshen, CT) on the Main Stage between Adelaide Punkin & Something Simple (1:30 p.m.) and Jake Swamp and the Pine (3 p.m.) The music starts at p.m. $60 1-day Fest pass. 10:30 a.m. https://www.blackbearmusicfest.com/