Some artists just have that touch to enable a song to become something bigger than just the lyrics and notes. With a gravelly authentic song presentation that stings with the tried and true Americana, David G Smith has been spreading his own brand of gospel for years.
Smith will be releasing his 11th LP, Witness Trees on June 2nd, an album about equality, love, death, and legacy. On Witness Trees, Smith moves from blues-driven roots music that showcases his masterful slide guitar work, to more story-driven folk rock. It’s an album about recognizing the injustices of the world, looking to our future, and acknowledging that we can do better.
“I was thinking a lot about the next generation with this one,” says Smith. “I was thinking about Malala Yousafzai who was shot in the head by the Taliban for fighting for girls’ rights to education. I was thinking about Greta Thunberg fighting for climate justice. And… I was thinking about my own granddaughters, and the world I’m leaving for them.”
Glide is premiering the gritty “River Gonna Talk,” (below) a riveting stew of swampy blues grooves that conjure the work of John Hiatt and the Neville Brothers.
“Some songs are prescient. They know what they want to say even when the writer isn’t sure. Some songs write about things that haven’t happened yet. But they are patient things…and know their time will come. ‘River Gonna Talk’ is a song like that. It was written a long time ago…before climate change became a phrase, and way before it became front-page news. RGT predicted (“Bluejay, he don’t know his song”) that songbirds might lose their song (due to ingested pesticides) before science confirmed it,” says Smith.
“RGT, and the entire Witness Trees collection, stands ready to reach out to my granddaughters, and to the Greta Thunbergs and Malala Yousafzai’s of the world, to let them know there are those who are listening now, those who are taking action now…that there are those who care, now. RGT sounds the fanfare and sets the tone. The vibe calls on the spirits of Skip James and Blind Willie Johnson and invokes the crossroads our collective souls may be standing at as we speak. The music invokes the ‘dirt-funk.’ It’s that simple – all you have to do is tap your feet to it. Bottom line, the songs call on the spirit of Marvin Gaye and speak for those who want to know what he wanted to know when he asked, “What’s goin’ on!'”.
