What better way to pay tribute to the late great Elliott Smith than having two stellar voices come together on a passion project? Seth Avett and Jessica Lea Mayfield have released an incredibly personal tribute to one of the most under celebrated artists of our generation, Mr. Elliott Smith who left the music world way too early. The record, simply titled Seth Avett & Jessica Lea Mayfield Sing Elliott Smith, was released last month and a short 13 date coast to coast tour followed. I was fortunate enough to catch the second to last show on the tour at the beautiful Palace of Fine Arts Theater.
It was an intimate setting with Avett and Mayfield accompanied only by a stand up bass and set up in front of a makeshift cold war era styled kitchen serving as their backdrop. I personally hate it when artists pay tribute by re-imagining music that doesn’t need to be re-imagined. Avett and Mayfield stayed true to the originals in every sense while their own unique styles naturally took Smith’s music to a new place and breathed new life into already timeless songs.
It’s a difficult line to walk, and both artists distilled the magic of these songs while pouring their hearts into each note and melody. There’s no mistaking they are on a mission to both celebrate and expand upon Smith’s legacy.
“Baby Britain” is my all-time favorite Elliot Smith song and it showed up as song number three in the set that evening. It was magnificent, and the moment for me when I felt that these two singers were meant to do this project. Gorgeous harmonies over bare bones instrumentation was all they needed to showcase the song itself, and that’s what they did so well.
Not only was the music stellar but since it was such a personal setting, there was quite a bit of crowd interaction and storytelling happening along the way. Seth’s introduced the Smith classic “Someone That I Used to Know” with a fun story regarding how much he dislikes the over played Gotye hit that shares the same title. In fact, he admits that he was totally hating on the pop artist for using the title. Then shortly after his call out, Avett was flipping through some used 45s at a record store. There he stumbled upon an old 45 of the same song title by Dolly Parton. “So it was Smith who stole that title after all,” Avett jokingly admitted to the audience.
But the evening wasn’t all Elliot Smith—there were several other uniquely placed gems in the set. The most interesting was a song that was made famous during the Andy Griffith Show. The song was called “There is a Time” and it was performed by the fictitious group Darlings on an episode. When Jessica Lea introduced this number I had no idea what the hell she was talking about, but once she started singing I was taken back to my childhood instantaneously. I totally remember this song, and she and Seth brought it to life brilliantly.
The rest of the set was a perfect mix of solo songs from both Mayfield and Avett, mixed in of course with more Elliott Smith songs from the record. It was an incredible night of music that probably will never happen again with both artist’s insanely busy schedules outside of this project. But they certainly captured this magical moment on the record which is something the fans can continue to celebrate every day.
