There are such things as the cosmic blues. Janis Joplin once\nrecorded a song by that name — she spelled it kosmik. But Chris\nSmither lives them.

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Smither’s cosmic blues are on full display in Hundred Dollar\nValentine, a brilliant amalgam made of equal parts past, present\nand future. It is music that traces its roots back deep into\ntradition, anchors its rhythms and textures in today, and reaches\nforward into the future, asking the Big Questions — why am I here?\nIs there purpose to all of this or is it just a spinning cascade of\nrandom moments?

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And he does it all with six strings, an insistent, understated\ngroove and a sly wink — letting you know that we may all enter and\nleave this world alone, but that don’t mean we can’t have a good\ntime while we’re here. Hundred Dollar Valentine, Smither’s 12th\nstudio disc, due out June 19, 2012 on Signature Sounds, sports the\nunmistakable sound he’s made his trademark: fingerpicked acoustic\nguitar and evocative sonic textures meshed with spare, brilliant\nsongs, delivered in a bone-wise, hard-won voice.

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From his early days as the hot New Orleans transplant in the\nBoston folk scene, through his wilderness years, to his reemergence\nin the 1990s as one of America’s most distinctive acoustic\nperformers, Chris Smither has always been his own man. He has\nzigged when others have zagged, eschewing sophisticated studio\ntricks and staying true to his musical vision, surrounding himself\nwith sympathetic musicians ranging from Bonnie Raitt and the late\nStephen Bruton to the next-generation kindred spirits with whom he\nworks today.

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