it was his voice AND his choice. (by that i mean the choices he made WITH his voice.)

while i can appreciate someone with good voice...there's plenty of folks out there with good voices.....but its the good voices who make good CHOICES about HOW they USE their voices who are far rarer in my opinion. . THOSE are the ones that catch my attention and will make me happily spend $, or inspire me to get out of bed to get my laptop to go online and type something about them.

...not knowing anything about this Sam Smith, and not knowing either of these songs prior to this SNL performance, here i am...

dont know if his studio work will live up to the live SNL performance, but i know i'm saving the performance on my DVR so as to burn his clips to DVD and audio later.

the songs themselves were interesting too..seemed well crafted/nicely arranged and well written. The choices in the live arrangements were just what EACH song needed. Neither performance was 'over produced', they gave each song the right amount of musical restraint and musical power 'just and only' when it was needed...

and the dudes voice was the same way....it was restrained and tender in spots, crisp, strong, solid and steady in spots, and powerful, projecting, raw & raspy in spots....but ALL done in a very thoughtful and 'attuned to the song' way....thankfully NOT in an 'i'm going to PROVE to you that i can SING' way (which can, and often does, put many good voices in my 'nice voice but i'm sorry, not buying' category...nope, this cat was in more of a 'THIS lyric in THIS particular song, at THIS specific moment feels like THIS to me. And THAT lyric over there makes me think and feel like 'this'.....

thats the kinda shit that is unfortunately a bit too rare in popular music these days if you ask me....
but yeah, based on this performance alone, this Sam Smith guy has us intrigued....





•
have you listened to
her stuff?
v
http://www.freemyheart.com
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Meshell-Ndegeocello/26602832142?ref=mf

RIP David Williams:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=David_Williams_(guitarist)&oldid=524196869