Stevie from St. Lou

When George Gershwin created "Porgy and Bess", the blues attained operatic dimensions. As interpreted by fellow New Yorker Smitty. The form acquires a chamber element. Playing acoustic metal bodied National guitars of various sizes and pitch, the guitarist researches the percussive, whining slide techniques of the great Mississippi delta bluesman from Son House to Muddy Waters. Combining these with intriguing traces of folk idioms, such as bluegrass, country, Tejano, Hawaiian and fleeting glimpses of jazz. Smitty engorges and enlarges this rich material to create his own compositional, conceptual repertory of americana with microscopic detail.

While favoring small unit formats of duos and trios, he has also worked in the larger aggregations of conductor/ composer Butch Morris as well as with the Spin Doctors, Keith Richards, and the Xpensive Wino's and west African Diabate clan. Reflective and refractive, his compositions have been represented on HBO " Soprano's", "Deadwood", as well as Cinemax, and Comedy Central. Say's Chris Spencer of HBO, "Smitty has been producing outstanding soundtrack music for HBO since the early nineties. His music has pure touch-sparse, emotional and evocative, the perfect match for our visuals. A beautiful sound”.