…the same song, twice, nearly 44 years apart. Each version is equally acute, but very different. Neither involves an electric guitar!
“Rock & roll guitar starts here”, says Rolling Stone of Chuck Berry’s Maybellene.
How many people know (or would ever guess) that Berry’s first hit (recorded at his first recording session in 1955) derived from a “country” fiddle tune?
Berry developed Maybellene from Ida Red, as recorded in 1938 by Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys. (Wills was the king of Western Swing)
The song’s story is detailed here
When he recorded Maybellene Berry was 28, “unknown”, but – as his performance tells you – not lacking self-confidence.
In July 1973 white “folk/blues/singer-songwriter” Chris Smither was also a 28-year old.
His “wasted years” were about to begin.
At this point, however, Chris was – like Chuck – an exuberant, self-evidently prodigiously gifted songsmith and guitarist.
Chris was likewise capable of giving a song a driving, “young rooster” treatment – and Chris could do so, alone, armed only with an acoustic guitar.
Click here to hear his live” version of Maybellene on July 28, 1973, in Lennox, Massachusetts.
A deal later in the 20th century Chris Smither re-emerged, sober, wiser, reliable, and with his musical gifts intact.
Now 73 years old, Smither continues to make excellent albums and is a consummate “live” performer.
He is equally compelling as a highly literate/philosophical songsmith, a groovemeister, and as a keen interpreter of other people’s songs.
His voice may have lost a little range (whilst gaining a deal of husk/rasp) and his fingers may be a little less startlingly agile, but Chris Smither is still a very effective writer, singer and player…and age has aided rather than wearied his shrewd interpretative sense.
Witness his current album, which is blessed with a prompt, reliable Australian distributor
Call Me Lucky includes a splendid new version of Maybellene – reinvented.
You have probably not imagined it as an older man’s song, nor as one which could be described as poignant…