Working under the apt nameplate The White Buffalo, singer/songwriter Jake Smith has resolutely charted his own single-minded course for more than a decade. An imposing figure with a voice to match, a resonant, roughhewn baritone, Smith writes about rebels, outsiders and troubled souls battling their way through the obstacles life throws in their paths, telling timeless tales generally set against recognizably contemporary backdrops. “I skirt the line between good and evil in a lot of my songs,” Smith points out. The hard-bitten themes and performances that have defined his career led the producers of Sons of Anarchy to grab six of Smith’s songs for use under scenes in the similarly edgy series, while The White Buffalo’s “American Dream,” written specifically for the 2013 feature film The Lone Ranger: Wanted, appears on the soundtrack album alongside contributions from fellow iconoclasts Lucinda Williams, Dave Alvin, Iggy Pop, Ben Kweller, The Aggrolites, Shane MacGowan of The Pogues and Iron & Wine.Smith didn’t set out to write a concept album as he laid the groundwork for what would become Shadows, Greys and Evil Ways (Unison Music Group, Sept. 10). It’s just that the songs that were coming out of him—or through him, as the case may be—led him to that revelation. As the narrative arc began to coalesce, Smith went with it, shaping the universal story in modern dress of Joe and Jolene, a pair of youngsters thrust together by chance, forging a deep, emotionally hotwired relationship that would at once haunt and sustain them throughout their lives. The narrative in turn led Smith to tackle the big themes of human existence—sin and redemption, faith and doubt, mortality and the possibility of an afterlife—that have obsessed artists and philosophers alike from time immemorial. But here, these universal themes have led Smith to take on charged modern-day issues including post-war trauma, the economic plight of American families and the gun-control debate with evenhandedness and a refreshing absence of judgment. All of these thematic vectors exist in the service of a gripping story told uncompromisingly and compassionately, each of its linked songs coming across with the ring of truth.“I look at the whole thing as a love story,” says Smith. “The beginning is their meeting, and because of his need and want to support her, he goes off to war, which starts his downward spiral. But he later realizes that his only chance for redemption and hope is the love of this woman, who has always stood by him regardless of the crazy shit he keeps pulling and the bad choices he keeps making.”
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Working under the apt nameplate The White Buffalo, singer/songwriter Jake Smith has resolutely charted his own single-minded course for more than a decade. An imposing figure with a voice to match, a resonant, roughhewn baritone, Smith writes about rebels, outsiders and troubled souls battling their way through the obstacles life throws in their paths, telling timeless tales generally set against recognizably contemporary backdrops. “I skirt the line between good and evil in a lot of my songs,” Smith points out. The hard-bitten themes and performances that have defined his career led the producers of Sons of Anarchy to grab six of Smith’s songs for use under scenes in the similarly edgy series, while The White Buffalo’s “American Dream,” written specifically for the 2013 feature film The Lone Ranger: Wanted, appears on the soundtrack album alongside contributions from fellow iconoclasts Lucinda Williams, Dave Alvin, Iggy Pop, Ben Kweller, The Aggrolites, Shane MacGowan of The Pogues and Iron & Wine.Smith didn’t set out to write a concept album as he laid the groundwork for what would become Shadows, Greys and Evil Ways (Unison Music Group, Sept. 10). It’s just that the songs that were coming out of him—or through him, as the case may be—led him to that revelation. As the narrative arc began to coalesce, Smith went with it, shaping the universal story in modern dress of Joe and Jolene, a pair of youngsters thrust together by chance, forging a deep, emotionally hotwired relationship that would at once haunt and sustain them throughout their lives. The narrative in turn led Smith to tackle the big themes of human existence—sin and redemption, faith and doubt, mortality and the possibility of an afterlife—that have obsessed artists and philosophers alike from time immemorial. But here, these universal themes have led Smith to take on charged modern-day issues including post-war trauma, the economic plight of American families and the gun-control debate with evenhandedness and a refreshing absence of judgment. All of these thematic vectors exist in the service of a gripping story told uncompromisingly and compassionately, each of its linked songs coming across with the ring of truth.“I look at the whole thing as a love story,” says Smith. “The beginning is their meeting, and because of his need and want to support her, he goes off to war, which starts his downward spiral. But he later realizes that his only chance for redemption and hope is the love of this woman, who has always stood by him regardless of the crazy shit he keeps pulling and the bad choices he keeps making.”
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