Chris Smither to celebrate career milestones with World Café show

Since the 1960s, bluesman Chris Smither has been a modern-day troubadour, playing thousands of shows across North America, Western Europe, and Australia. One city has been a special destination for him over the years: Philadelphia.

"That was the first place outside of New England that I established myself," Smither says during a phone interview last month from his home in western Massachusetts.

Smither performs Wednesday with the Motivators at World Cafe Live. He remembers the region's vibrant music scene and how it embraced a young singer/songwriter.

"I played the Main Point, the 2nd Fret, and the Bijou Café," recalls Smither, a frequent performer at the Philadelphia Folk Festival, which he first played in 1969.

On one memorable bill, he opened for Joni Mitchell, touring behind her first album, at the Main Point around Halloween 1968. "It was four nights," Smither says. "We did two shows a night, and people were lined up around the block."

Philadelphia also played a key role in establishing Smither as a recording artist: "My first producer was Michael Cuscuna, who was a DJ at WXPN. He produced my first three albums."

Smither's return to the city comes as he celebrates a pair of major milestones in 2014 - his 70th birthday, which was Nov. 11, and his 50th anniversary in the music business - with an album and a book.

The album, Still on the Levee (Signature Sounds/Mighty Albert), serves as a career retrospective, with Smither recording new versions of 24 songs. The book, the self-published Chris Smither Lyrics 1966-2012 (smither.com, 198 pages, $24.99) features the words to 76 compositions. In a related project, Signature Sounds president Jim Olsen produced Link of Chain: A Songwriters Tribute to Chris Smither, which features such artists as Bonnie Raitt, Mary Gauthier, Loudon Wainwright III, Josh Ritter, and Peter Case recording Smither's songs.

For Still on the Levee, Smither returned to New Orleans, the city where he lived until his early 20s, to record. The double CD gave him the chance to approach his back catalog in a new way.

"Train Home," a mystical song about death and the hereafter, receives a New Orleans treatment, thanks to Allen Toussaint's piano. On "No Love Today," inspired by Smither's memories of a fruit-and-vegetable peddler in the city, Toussaint's keyboard work adds a wistful dimension.

Still on the Levee also is a family affair for Smither. Catherine Norr, his twin sister, sings on " 'Deed I Do," while Robin Smither, his 10-year-old daughter, plays violin on "Leave the Light On."

One constant on the album is Smither's guitar work, which is rooted in the blues. "It's one-third Mississippi John Hurt," he says, "one-third Lightnin' Hopkins, and one-third me."

As a songwriter, Smither has gone beyond the blues' standard themes, exploring such topics as parenthood ("I Don't Know") and evolution ("Origin of Species"). With its eloquent opening lines, "Leave the Light On," heard in two versions on Still on the Levee, is a meditation on mortality:

If I were young again I'd pay attention

To that little-known dimension,

The taste of endless time,

It's like water. It runs right through our fingers

Like a rich red wine

Smither has a deep appreciation for language, which he attributes to his late father, William, an author and professor of Spanish and Portuguese at Tulane University.

"He was a word guy and so am I," says Smither. "One of my earliest memories is being sent down the hall [by him] to get the dictionary."

Smither prefers to write alone: "I've only collaborated on two songs. In some respects, I've felt uncomfortable; I hold back my best stuff. Songwriting is intensely private."

Wainwright, who recorded "Place in Line" on Link of Chain, says by e-mail that he agrees: "My feeling is, songwriters are quiet with each other when it comes to how they actually get the songs written. It's personal."

Smither's songs have been recorded by Emmylou Harris, Diana Krall and Esther Phillips. His most frequently covered song is "Love You Like a Man," which Raitt revised and retitled "Love Me Like a Man." In the liner notes for her 1990 compilation The Bonnie Raitt Collection, she called it "one of the best modern blues songs ever written."

On the Link of Chain tribute, Smither enjoys the creative approaches the artists brought to the material. Paul Cebar, for example, channels Louis Prima, another New Orleans native, on "No Love Today."

"They made the songs their own," Smither says. The title track, performed by Dave Alvin, is "so different from mine. It's almost like a different song."

As 2014 winds down, Smither continues to look ahead, booking concerts through the first half of 2015 and planning for a new studio album in 2017.

How much longer will he keep performing?

"My Dad asked me that once," Smither says with a chuckle, "and I said, 'I hate to quit when it's starting to pay off.' "

Chris Smither

& The Motivators, "Still on the Levee" release show.

8 p.m. Wednesday. World Cafe Live, 3025 Walnut St.

Tickets: $32

Information: 215-222-1400, www.worldcafelive.comEndText