Sonny Smith

Sonny Smith creates low-key, moving story-songs, much in the classic folk tradition but with a contemporary indie folk sensibility. On this release, his second, he’s joined by Bay Area players like Carrie Bradley (the Breeders), Ralph Carney (Tom Waits), Danny Heifetz (Dieselhed) and more.

Sonny Smith was born in San Francisco, 1972. When he was seventeen he moved to Colorado and started playing blues piano in the mountain town bars and clubs. After two years in the small town of Gunnison, he moved to Denver and played piano weekly at the Mercury Café and Muddy’s Coffeehouse, playing four- and five-hour sets till closing time, at 3 am. Unable to stay in one place too long, he traveled down to Central America, where he found himself living on an organic farm in the jungles of Costa Rica, just a few miles from the Caribbean Sea. He met two other musicians and they busked up and down the tropical coast, playing tunes wherever they were invited. It was on the farm when Smith first began to write songs, as well as plays, screenplays and short stories.

In 1996 he returned to San Francisco, and he had his first gig at the Rite Spot, playing old blues tunes on the piano -- but the piano was so bad he started facing the audience to perform his own songs accompanied by guitar. With guitar, harmonica and microphone he abandoned the piano entirely and developed his own style of intimate performance, incorporating folk, a little jazz and long-winded storytelling with improvisational lyrics. From the Rite Spot he began to play the San Francisco club circuit, leading an ever-revolving cast of local musicians.

Since 2001, Smith has written a column, “Steppin’ Out”, for the New Mission Newspaper and has had stories published in the New York literary magazine, Si Senor. In 2000 he wrote and directed his first short movie “Kid Gus Man.” 2003 will see the release of his CD ‘this is my story, this is my song’ on the San Francisco label Jackpine Social Club.