5 Songs I Love w/ Robert Luther Smith
Every songwriter has a collection of records that leave a lasting impression, whether they introduce new musical ideas, reshape an understanding of songwriting or inspire the creative direction of their own work. For singer-songwriter Robert Luther Smith, those influences span the sophisticated songwriting of Burt Bacharach, the groundbreaking guitar sounds of Jimi Hendrix, the psychedelia of The Beatles, the funk of Average White Band and the genre-defying artistry of David Bowie. Each represents a different stage in his musical education, helping shape an approach to songwriting built around melody, rhythm, experimentation and storytelling.
With his new album Blues Man reflecting decades of musical exploration and creative development, Luther looks back at five tracks that helped define his musical identity. From discovering the magic of song structure and electric guitar to finding his own voice through funk and R&B, he shares the records that changed the way he heard, understood and ultimately made music.
Do You Know the Way to San Jose · Dionne Warwick
This is slightly out of chronology but this great song represents all the songs I listened to up until 1967/68 like the Supremes’ Baby Love and Stop in the name of Love, Michelle, the Beach Boys’ Barbara Ann, 24 hours from Tulsa and Trains and Boats and Planes; regular songs with a songwriter, lyricist, arranger and producer, verses, choruses and, in Do you Know the Way to San Jose, a fantastic middle 8. Having discovered the bass drum in Let’s Twist Again, song structure was my next big thing, but Bacharach had a real chord thing too, what I later discovered was major 7ths and minor sevenths and 9ths (or 2nd), later to be seen in Steely Dan. In this song Burt stuck a weirdly beautiful chord in it which I suppose was jazzy, but it also had Hal David’s amazing lyrics. In fact, the keys man in my band Pete Case told me recently that when he first joined in 1983 I explained all the Bacharach chords to him – because I use them a lot. I forgot all that. Great record and a real lesson to me.
The Jimi Hendrix Experience - All Along The Watchtower
Having been bombarded by the above songs up to 1966 I guess, I first heard All Along the Watchtower in the kitchen at Sandridge Road, St. Albans where I grew up, and it, as they say, blew me away. The production was different and, in particular, the guitar sound. That, of course led me to buy Are You Experienced and Smash Hits and I was well away. I got the fuzz box (£7, now £184!) and then figured out how to plug my Watkins Rapier into my valve stereo, although I eventually bought a Vox AC30. It seems to me that the electric guitar overdrive sound replaced what would have been the violin in pre-pop tea dances and I learnt to use overdrive guitar as a melody instrument as can be heard across my tracks. A mould-breaking sound, it’s a Bob Dylan song as we know, and full credit to Chas Chandler.
Strawberry Fields Forever · The Beatles
This is where I latched onto the Beatles. The first songs were good, but standard. Michelle caught my interest, not least because we used to go to France a lot but Strawberry Fields was something else. The mellotron intro was amazing and I have consistently used the g major sus motif on many of my tracks. Like the watchtower, this was a mould-breaking track, in fact it wasn’t on the Magical Mystery Tour EP but is now on that album, which I think is even better than Sgt Pepper’s. Strawberry Fields got me interested in psychedelia and I continue to love that genre especially in the art world. It’s Daliesque and obviously referenced the “trip” and the whole “beat” thing like Kerouac. It moved music from the standard verse chorus stuff to something completely different and touched off my imagination. Nothing is real, but there’s nothing to get hung up about. It was a whole new language. It was a whole new world. My mother wasn’t best pleased. I bought a psychedelic shirt.
Pick up the Pieces · Average White Band
Now I really struggle to choose. By now I had run through everything, not least Neil Young’s Harvest with the fantastic Tweed guitar sound, Joni Mitchell’s Blue and Crosby Stills and Nash’s harmony vocals. I went through all the new Stevie Wonder albums like Innervisions (incredibly enough he’s playing Glasgow on the 11th of this month). Led by Superstition I got into the funky thing, which I learnt was syncopation, but it’s his ballads like All in Love is Fair that gripped me. I needed the funky thing at which point Pick Up the Pieces came on the scene with the Average White Band (great name). I think the influence is as clear as day in my funky songs and all I can say is Alan Gorrie, the bassist and main man, must have the best black book in the business to get onto Atlantic and have Arif Mardin producing. I have to reference That’s the Way (I like it) by KC and the Sunshine band as well and Jive Talking by the Bee Gees but Pick up the Pieces got me going. I knew how to make ballads: what I wanted to do was learn how to make proper R&B records…. nobody in England knew, that’s for sure. So, I just had to learn myself…
Fame (2016 Remaster) · David Bowie
1975, and so to David. I first heard him on the radio in Bournemouth when I was revising my “O” Levels in May 1972 and I heard the Morse code riff from You keep me Hanging on which caught my attention. The version I knew was that of Vanilla Fudge, but it was originally the Supremes. It was Starman, which Bowie later admitted was a version of Over the Rainbow because his people told him he needed a hit song. The furore over him led me to get the album and I worked out all the songs but found they were rather simple – the chords were all from the “cage” system which I had learnt from other pop songs (jazz songs use lots of inversions). I liked that song and Soul Love – I copied the rhythm from that for my first single Stepping Stoned (on YouTube as the Hit Men, my first proper band). However later I discovered Hunky Dory, although some of it was rather quirky and he put the funny voice on. However, while he went on to be Aladdin Sane and write my favourite single of his Rebel Rebel, although it’s not my style, he famously went over to funk as the Thin White Duke and Young Americans. On there was Fame and, to be fair, John Lennon contributed to it, so he’s made two contributions to this selection. But my new interest in funk enabled me to see him in a different light. He’d shed the Englishness and gone funky. He used dramatic mixing effects which I liked. I started the Hit Men in 1977, sadly the tapes are damaged, but Fame was really the end of my musical education and fandom and I created my own style, a style that is clearly represented by the Blues Man album. Between Fame and the Hit Men I was impressed by the new Bee Gees funky sound and Billy Joel’s I Love You Just the Way You Are and I got interested in Steely Dan (especially Night by Night, then the Aja album), but otherwise Luther had appeared…
Listen to Blues Man
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