Shulman Smith

Fire consumes the timber of a newborn Western town.
The captain of an airship steams stoned into the night.
A perfect home imagined is never to be found.

In his debut recordings from the cataclysmic summer of 2020, Rocky Mountain songwriter Shulman Smith pulls us through a kaleidoscopic trip of humming guitars, shimmering pedal steel, and saloon piano. Each song takes a dreamer’s view of the American West, time traveling from past to present.

Smith has walked a winding road of curiosity. Variously, an instrument-builder, painter, photographer, programmer… he’s always kept one eye on the tower of song. After working in and out of music in California, he found a collaborator in fellow Coloradan Josh Lopez (<a href="spotify:artist:085pc2PYOi8bGKj0PNjekA" data-name="will.i.am">will.i.am</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:4ylR3zwA0zaapAu94fktwa" data-name="Macy Gray">Macy Gray</a>). Together, they whittled Smith’s collection of cassette-tape demos into a group of songs to be recorded with the best players in folk and Americana: <a href="spotify:artist:402exQksJb039TBoaFdVF5" data-name="Rich Hinman">Rich Hinman</a> (<a href="spotify:artist:7dmeVSH4lJqxXU7C87dKIB" data-name="Tanya Tucker">Tanya Tucker</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:4LX0KCPnH7gvxEbVXqXmAE" data-name="Molly Tuttle">Molly Tuttle</a>), <a href="spotify:artist:6UKgK94NWmwrunY0qdVMKr" data-name="Kaveh Rastegar">Kaveh Rastegar</a> (Springsteen, <a href="spotify:artist:3vbKDsSS70ZX9D2OcvbZmS" data-name="Beck">Beck</a>), Jay Bellerose (Willy Nelson, <a href="spotify:artist:6DoH7ywD5BcQvjloe9OcIj" data-name="Ray LaMontagne">Ray LaMontagne</a>), Gabe Witcher (<a href="spotify:artist:4gFssfOmWNY3LfIZ3zyoy4" data-name="Punch Brothers">Punch Brothers</a>), Blair Sinta (<a href="spotify:artist:6ogn9necmbUdCppmNnGOdi" data-name="Alanis Morissette">Alanis Morissette</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:01Ppu7N8uYJI8SAONo2YZA" data-name="Melissa Etheridge">Melissa Etheridge</a>), Ben Peeler (<a href="spotify:artist:2kGBy2WHvF0VdZyqiVCkDT" data-name="Father John Misty">Father John Misty</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:0CDUUM6KNRvgBFYIbWxJwV" data-name="Dawes">Dawes</a>), Adam MacDougall (<a href="spotify:artist:4Aixcj6XBhqbdEHDKS7QcH" data-name="Circles Around The Sun">Circles Around The Sun</a>), and more.

Drinking a strange brew of old-time country, psychedelic rock and bluegrass, Smith tells stories that dive through the looking glass of history, biography, and fantasy. After mixing with Tucker Martine (<a href="spotify:artist:43O3c6wewpzPKwVaGEEtBM" data-name="My Morning Jacket">My Morning Jacket</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:37eqxl8DyLd5sQN54wYJbE" data-name="Hiss Golden Messenger">Hiss Golden Messenger</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:5sXaGoRLSpd7VeyZrLkKwt" data-name="Gregory Alan Isakov">Gregory Alan Isakov</a>), 2021 will see Smith’s songs come to life.