Although comparisons are often drawn between the Devon-born, Liverpool-based guitarist John Smith and fellow alternative folk figures such as Bonnie "Prince" Billy, Fionn Regan, José González, and Cara Dillon, his associations reach further back to an earlier cohort of experimental and forward-thinking players in the same idiom. Performances alongside John Martyn, John Renbourn, and Martin Simpson helped establish those links. An exploratory stylist who favors unconventional tunings in the manner of Davy Graham and frequently manipulates his acoustic guitar through atypical methods—such as retuning strings mid-chord or positioning the instrument flat across his lap to strike the strings in dulcimer fashion—Smith can evoke an uncanny blend of Tim Buckley, whose “Song to the Siren” remains a fixture of his repertoire, and the East Texas avant-primitive Jandek. At other times his ensemble shows recall the intimate chamber-folk textures of Nick Drake’s Five Leaves Left.
His first appearance on record came with the self-released live collection Live at the Roundhouse, issued in both CD and DVD formats, followed in 2006 by the debut studio album The Fox and the Monk. Two standalone singles appeared next—“The Bird and the Worm” in 2007 and the 2008 duet “If I Prove False” with Dillon—before Smith added guitar parts to a pair of tracks on Dillon’s widely praised 2009 release Hill of Thieves. Later that same year he issued his own Map or Direction, comprising material captured during travels across the southern United States. The covers collection Eavesdropping arrived in 2011 and featured reinterpretations of songs first recorded by Elton John, Tuung, and Terence Trent D’Arby. After a comparatively subdued 2012, Great Lakes emerged the following March, its sessions centered in a converted chapel in northwest Wales.
In the wake of John Martyn’s passing in 2009, Smith took part in a multi-artist tribute alongside David Gray, Beth Orton, and Vashti Bunyan. He has since contributed guitar to projects by Lianne La Havas and Joan Baez, and in 2017 delivered his fifth album, Headlong, which honors the memory of John Renbourn, who had died two years earlier.
