On his eponymous debut album, songwriter/vocalist Christian Smith delivers the basic facts right away: “I was born in New Orleans, Louisiana—never thought I’d go anywhere…”
In reality, after graduating from Riverdale High School (“We called it Reefer-dale then”), attending UNO and fronting a couple of local bands (Cupid’s Dirty Needles and Live Bait), he headed for Hollywood, where “The L.A.P.D. decided that I was having too much fun and beat me up and threw me in jail and ran me out of town.” This cop-imposed exile was not permanent and Christian continues his residence on the West Coast today.
“In New Orleans, the music scene is just so much more real.”
Enter the album’s co-producer (with partner Michael Skloff) Giorgio Bertuccelli, yet another transplant from New Orleans: “Christian’s my brother-in-law. Actually, I knew Christian from UNO. Stacy, his sister, and I were both theater majors there. When Stacy and I got married, she had this cassette of him playing live at Checkpoint with Kenny Holladay on lead guitar and Mike Larkins on guitar and I really liked it.
“My first break was that I did a whole campaign for Levi’s 501 jeans and out of that I built a pretty decent studio. At the time, my studio was right at Hollywood and Vine in the Taft Building. I have two sons and they said to Christian, ‘Why don’t you come over here, hang out with us and make some demos.’ That’s how the record got started. In fact, the track ‘Drinkin’ By Myself’ is part of those original demos.
“We have a new studio now in West Hollywood—the RecRoom, which is a pretty high-end studio. It was mentioned in Mix magazine as one of the best studios of l999. It’s an open-air studio. What I loved about New Orleans studios is that everyone jammed in the same room. I wanted to keep that environment.
“Christian was really the maiden voyage for the new studio—the first project we did, the first thing we ever recorded here. The first time I ever recorded drums was for Christian’s ‘Drunk On Bourbon,’ recorded in our conference room—that’s completely natural, no reverb, no effects.”
On a mission to buy some microphones in a Los Angeles music store, Bertuccelli encountered Astral Project pianist David Torkanowsky and invited him to participate: “David Torkanowsky, on the opening of ‘Drunk On Bourbon,’ plays in the same conference room and that piano is completely natural. The way we started shaping the studio and dealing with it was through this recording.”
As Christian Smith explains, they wanted to capture Torkanwosky’s funky side: “There’s a grand piano in the studio and it’s a beautiful piano but it didn’t quite have that honky-tonk feel that we were looking for. The sax player that we used on the CD, Count Daddio, had this little upright spinet piano and it had a great funky little sound. So we borrowed his piano, put it in the big conference room, tuned it up and Torkanowsky played that. It had a nice homey New Orleans feel to it.”
In the same song, Christian also manages to mention Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop, the Mississippi River and Checkpoint Charlie (“Do your laundry, grab a burger…”). The CD’s booklet features photographs of St. Louis Cathedral, the Roman Candy wagon and Central Grocery, home of “The Original Muffuletta.”
“In New Orleans, the music scene is just so much more real,” Christian declares. “You’re in touch with your audience. People are dancing and having a good time. Whereas, in L.A., a lot of times it seems like they’re grading you.
“The drummer I played with in New Orleans in various bands—Matt Brown—was staying out here so we pushed it so that we could record as much as we could before he was gone. He played on things like ‘Drunk On Bourbon’ and ‘It’s Hard To Play Guitar When Your Fingers Are Smashed.’ We had really developed a rapport together and it would have been difficult to have some session drummer come in who had the kind of nuances Matt had. He’s a buddy. Even on songs like ‘I Have Fucked A Goddess,’ which really isn’t a New Orleans song, he threw some New Orleans flair into it.
“My mom worked at Preservation Hall when I was a little kid. I used to go there with her and fall asleep in the back, listening to the music. It was a great atmosphere to grow up in. As a teenager, I was real into rock like everybody else, listening to British rock, Hendrix and the Stones. When I got older and traveled around a little more, I realized more and more just how much I was influenced by New Orleans jazz and blues. I couldn’t get away from it if I tried.”
To guarantee that his L.A. band was appropriately New Orleans-flavored, Christian hired a New Orleans bassist, Mark Liuzza (formerly of the Murmurs), and brought the whole combo to the Crescent City last Christmas so that his bandmates might appreciate where he’s (literally) coming from. What Christian didn’t know when he formed his band was that one member was the scion of Hollywood royalty: “I’ve got an excellent lead guitarist, Franchot Tone. He’s the grandson of the movie star. He didn’t mention anything about it—I just thought it was an interesting name. One day, me and the bass player were looking at an old movie magazine and we see the original Franchot Tone in there, on the arm of some movie starlet! Franchot had never told us!”
Colloquialisms
The New Orleans Music Colloquium returns to the Old U.S. Mint on April 20 and 21, as an educational adjunct to the French Quarter Festival. The conference, which is free to pre-registrants (call 568-6968 to register; the first 50 registrants receive free lunch on April 21), concentrates exclusively on research topics in New Orleans music. Honored with awards will be educators Ernest Chachere, Dr. Bert Braud (who drafted NOCCA’s music curriculum in the early ’70s) and the father/son team of A.J. Guma (one of Dr. John’s first guitar instructors) and Michael Guma, as well as jazz musicans Lionel Ferbos and Stanley Mendelson. In panel discussions moderated by Dave Sager and Dr. Jack Stewart, New Orleans trumpeters Wendell Brunious, Charlie Fardella, Lionel Ferbos, Chris Tyle, Plato Smith, Gregg Stafford, Clyde Kerr, Jr. and Clive Wilson will reflect upon the artistry of Louis Armstrong. Dr. Susan Nicassio will discuss the life of Sister Mary Elise, the force behind the Xavier University music faculty for 34 years. Historians Dick Allen and Jack Stewart will interview trumpeter Jimmy LaRocca on “Growing Up with Nick LaRocca,” founder of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band. Jerry Brock, producer and co-owner of the Louisiana Music Factory, will spill the (red) beans on his longtime pet project, the story of bandleader Patrick Sarsfield Gilmore. In 1863, Gilmore was assigned to New Orleans as part of Abraham Lincoln’s efforts to bring the Confederate States back into the Union. Gilmore’s 32-piece band was one of the first known black brass bands in New Orleans and the direct antecedent of all modern second-liners. Which means that we have Honest Abe to thank for Buddy Bolden and Kermit Ruffins.
Highway 61 Revitalized
The rumors they are a –flying! The juiciest, most persistent rumor lately has been that Bob Dylan, the rumored Audubon Place property owner, will celebrate his 60th birthday (May 24, 2001) by performing in New Orleans. At a casino! Ah, come on! We heard that Mr. Robert Allen Zimmerman (as Dylan’s proud parents named him) is going to throw a free concert, with free vanilla “Blonde On Blonde” doberge cake, in Jackson Square! Something is happening here and you don’t know what it is…that’s rite—April Fools!
