Have Guitar Will Travel - Smokey Hormel

How do we come up with all these musical posts you might ask.
Part of it is of course that we’re all nerds in a way and easily get excited by underrated/weird/obscure artists/groups.
But other times it can be just a small thing that brings back vague memories…
In this case it was a post by Sal Nunziato, about his ‘Songs of the Week’ in which he wrote: Ocean In Your Eyes- Smokey & Miho
(Never a fan of Cibo Matto, but Miho's collab with the great Smokey Hormel pushed a few buttons. Something about this track really gets to me in a good way.)

I didn’t even reply at there time, but somehow ‘Smokey Hormel’ triggered something, I knew that guy, he played with other artists, but whom?
And that started it all, before I knew I was going down a slippery digital slope looking for information on Smokey and found plenty…
In many ways Smokey resembles Marc Ribot, another very active session guitar player, at times they even played on the same artist albums, e.g. Tom Waits, but not on the same sessions.
Biggest difference perhaps is that Ribot released quite a few solo albums, whereas Smokey made only one: Smokey's Secret Family, which he describes as ‘a dynamic horn and percussion ensemble in an exploration of 1950's African dance music’!

Anyway, here’s a ‘brief’ overview of what he has been up to:
1980s Radio Ranch Straight Shooters, The Blasters, Lester Butler
1990s John Doe, Beck, Tom Waits
2000s Miho Hatori, Forro In the Dark, Johnny Cash, Smokey's Secret Family (playing  Brazilian-, Caribbean-, and African-styled surf music), Smokey's Roundup (playing western swing), Norah Jones, Neil Diamond + various soundtracks

And that’s really the tip of the iceberg as he has also recorded or performed with Adele, Lee Allen, R. L. Burnside, Jim Carroll, Rosanne Cash, Cibo Matto, Bo Diddley, John Doe, Dixie Chicks, Erasmo Carlos, Steve Earle, Los Fabulosos Cadillacs, Allen Ginsberg, Josh Groban, Marianne Faithfull, Joe Houston, Wanda Jackson, Mick Jagger, David Johansen, K. D. Lang, Al Kooper, Bettye Lavette, Sean Lennon, Chris Martin, The Manhattan Transfer, Patsy Montana, Jennifer Nettles, Beth Orton, Kid Rock, Timothy B Schmit, Joe Strummer, Justin Timberlake, Rufus Wainwright, Yebba and Yo La Tengo…

I’ve made a 3 CD compilation which gives a pretty decent impression of his guitar style.
It starts with a live track by The Blasters and ends with Bettye Lavette!

 

More info (interviews, etc.) can be found here.