With the resurgence of vinyl, music scholars wondered what brought about renewed interest in a format everyone assumed to be as dead as Abraham Lincoln. Many share a common opinion: it is the warm sound of analog recording that connects the listener viscerally to the music. Drew Smith's Lonely Choir, the latest offering from Austin-based singer-songwriter Drew Smith, immediately gives off the sentimentality of an analog-recorded album. It is easy to imagine a phonograph needle bending down and cycling through Lonely Choir, perhaps on a rainy day when the listener needs to feel comforted rather than hyperactive or homicidal.

Smith, 29, was an Army brat who moved from base to base until the family settled in Colorado Springs. Living in a home with 4 other brothers, his parents reared the family on American folk classics like Paul Simon, John Denver and Harry Chapin. After attending college in Omaha, Smith moved to Austin in 2002. Almost immediately, he connected with students in the UT music school, including arranger and pianist Matt Russell, the first member of his band.

Once in Austin, Smith started trading records with new friends and bandmates, quickly discovering lesser-known offerings from artists like The Kinks and Harry Nilsson. As Smith's band formed and grew, a few weekly gigs a month at Momo's in Austin eventually turned into a Wednesday-night residency at the West 6th Street bar. Smith and his band are widely known to deliver a flux of ballads and toe-tappers not easily found elsewhere in a music-soaked town.

It goes without saying: Smith's band is killer (if one may use ye olde cliché). With the aforementioned Russell on keys, Ryan "The Beef" Bowman on bass and Kyle Thompson on drums, the backing band on the record also benefits from contributions by Ed Jurdi (of the Band of Heathens) on electric guitar, Kim Deschamps (of The Mother Truckers and Cowboy Junkies) on pedal steel, Warren Hood (of The Waybacks and Lyle Lovett) on fiddle and Dustin Welch on banjo and resonator guitars. So inspired by the combination of the backing band, Smith gave them a fitting moniker: the Lonely Choir. The decision to name the album after the backing band attests to the synthesis achieved in the studio.

Quite a few of the songs from Lonely Choir start off with assassin riffs, interminably memorable. Look no further than "Something So Much," a comfortably settled tune. The horns add a special layer to a metamorphic organ melody, which is accentuated with Smith's vocals, thumping with the verse of his own lyric. Other standouts like "Diamonds" and "Nilsson Sings Newman" trail the already stellar guitar and bass lines with Russell's horn arrangements evocative of the Memphis Horns' genius. In line with title song influences, Barrett Walton at Infinity Recording Studios in Austin recorded the album straight to tape, rather than digitally, reminiscent of recordings by predecessors like Nilsson and Simon.

On Drew Smith's Lonely Choir, classic sounding songs interlace with that feeling you get from car rides, sing-a-longs, and having certain nostalgic considerations about American life. The group, spoon-fed singer-songwriters since birth, create an undoubtedly warm record that leaves a mysteriously good feeling upon each listen. Without pretension or entitlement, the album draws the listener into the world of Drew Smith's Lonely Choir, a place of simple elegance and a beating heart for time-honored music. Welcome. It's a nice place to be.

Date	Venue	City & State
* New dates are shown in RED

Examiner.com October 2009 (link)

Drew Smith Airs onn the BIg Takeover show October 2009 (link)

Atlanta Music Guide July 2009 (PDF)

"So full of talent & promise"
- Big Takeover

"A powerful new entry in pop music."
- Blogcritics

"Austinite Drew Smith's incredibly well-crafted lyrics (from "New Year's Day": "The drama in growing old/is you're unsure you'll get there"); inventive melodies proffering pop, blues and even twang (or in "NYC Song," all three); some Sgt. Pepper's/Kinksian/post-Vaudeville flourishes; and a roster of well-known supporting players convey this is no first-timer's effort. But until now, Smith apparently labored in obscurity. With this album, he's put an end to that."
- Lynn Margolis, Texas Music Magazine

Top 10 Austin CDs of 2008
#1 DREW SMITH'S LONELY CHOIR
"From the opening notes of staccato piano, ears perk up to this record with an inquisitive canine-quality. But we're not listening to determine squirrel, cat, or intruder. Our senses are wrapping around pop melodies emerging from thin air, wondering how the trumpets, trombone, and banjo got in the yard. You can't escape this album without thinking of The Beatles, Van Morrison, and The Kinks (especially the horn charts of Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire)). Though Smith would beg you to expand your musical mind to include Harry Nilsson and Randy Newman, who he immortalizes - along with the very act of geeking out to great records - in "Nilsson Sings the Songs of Newman." While Smith wrote all the songs, and delivers with a commanding presence, a nod certainly needs to be steered toward Matt Russell, who arranged all the compositions masterfully along with playing all keys (piano, organ, Rhodes, Wurlitzer). If you ever get stuck on that proverbial island, any of the ten on this list would be good to have with you, but Drew Smith's Lonely Choir will leave you felling good as much as you are satisfied."
- Dante Dominick, Austin.com

"Drew Smith has released three EPs and two full-length albums since he moved to Austin in 2002. As some have detected listening to the clever tunes on "Drew Smith's Lonely Choir," Smith is going through a bit of a Harry Nilsson phase right now, especially the groundbreaking "Nilsson Sings Newman."
- Joe Gross, Austin American Statesman

Andrew Dansby named The Lonely Choir to his Top 12 Texas Albums of 2008. "One of my favorite albums to come out of Austin this year... Smith plays contrasts with a mad scientist's devious glee. He does a great job pitting a bouncing Bacharachlike piano against a weepy pedal steel on New Year's Day. Strings and a banjo play nice together on NYC Song. Sloppy bop-ba-da's bounce nicely against brass on Diamonds."
- Andrew Dansby, Houston Chronicle

"He's as capable of jaunty pop ("Follow Me Down," "Diamonds") as he is of Van Morrison-style balladry ("Silver Pictures"), but his neatest trick is making it seamlessly his own sound."
- Margaret Moser, Austin Chronicle

"Silver Pictures" video

New video on YouTube