Elliott Smith: Keeping the Musician Alive

Despite Smith’s climbing success in album sales, his career was marred by what seemed like an ever-present battle with drugs and depression. Publications like Rolling Stone, Pitchfork and Spin have written about Smith’s personal struggles; Smith never kept anything completely private. The history of his emotional distress and hardships explain the musician’s ability to articulate pain in such a simple and beautiful way. No artist has yet to accomplish his level of songwriting.

Photo by Autumn de Wilde

Smith started recording his last official studio album “From A Basement On the Hill” in 2002, but died before its release. By request of his family, friends of Smith’s helped complete the final product and the record was released a year after his death. Joel Graves, a friend of Smith’s and one of the owners of the New Monkey recording studio where Smith recorded “Basement,” says the following of the musician: “Elliott is engraved deep within our souls, and he changed our lives as well. He’s a part of everything I do everyday, and we try to make the studio a place Elliott would be proud of.”

“New Moon,” a posthumous compilation album, was released in 2007 on Seattle-based Kill Rock Stars. It includes a 2-disc, 24-track compilation of music Smith created but did not release before he died.

Present

Since Smith’s death, artists across the world have come together to perform tribute shows in his honor. Dangerbird Records co-founder Jeff Castelaz references Smith when he talks about his top-10 songs of all time. Rilo Kiley wrote the song “It Just Is” to pay tribute to Smith. Ben Folds’ “Late” is an entire song about the artist.

It’s difficult to read about any modern captivating singer/songwriter without seeing Smith’s name somehow mentioned in the review. Underground acoustic artist Emperor X says of Smith’s music:

When I first heard [the album] Either/Or, I felt like I was in on a really cool secret, like I was given access to an archive of a great but profoundly and permanently unknown artist’s private moments of casual brilliance. Rather than trying to directly emulate anything concrete in Smith’s music, I tried to be like him in that I wanted to convey to listeners that same intense, almost uncomfortable intimacy. Smith wasn’t the first person to hit on this quality–it’s something shared by many great recordings before and since Either/Or’s release–but on that record he was a master at overwhelming us with it.

The latest presentation of Smith’s life in film is Gil Reyes’ documentary, “Searching For Elliott Smith,” which premiered at last year’s College Music Journal Festival and will be showing tomorrow night at the Somerville Theater on behalf of theĀ  Independent Film Festival of Boston. The movie showcases Smith’s life by interviewing those closest to Smith, including Jennifer Chiba and Smith’s former band/roommate, Sean Croghan.

The latest Elliott Smith documentary by Gil Reyes.

In efforts to keep Smith’s records on the shelves, Kill Rock Stars re-released the musician’s first and last records (“Roman Candle” and “Basement”) on April 5, 2010. In anticipation of the reissues, the label released two free MP3s, “Last Call,” and “Twilight,” which can be streamed and downloaded here and here respectively.

When asked by writer Johnathan Valania whether Smith thought suicide was courageous or cowardly, Smith replied, “It’s ugly and cruel and I really need my friends to stick around, but dying people should have that right.” The artist decided to exercise his own right to die in 2003. It’s up to his fans to share Smith’s music in order to keep his name relevant and keep his music alive.

About Jennifer Brown

Jennifer Brown (COM '10) is a music writer for the Quad. She started working with national indie music acts and booking shows/interviews during her sophomore year of high school at Penn State's WKPS. She then traveled to Germany and explored the techno/HAUS scene and her love for all-things German. After that she worked at WKPS some more before finding her "home" at Boston University where she was a music director at WTBU. She has since added to her resume Pirate Promotion and Management, On A Friday, and the Cambridge Chronicle. Jen is now in Germany, taking some classes and booking shows.

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6 Comments on “Elliott Smith: Keeping the Musician Alive”

  1. Correct! It is a highly contested point. That is why I introduced the case with, “according to Jennifer Chiba…”

    However, I am in the category of those who do believe that the death was suicide, after researching the incident myself and talking to music industry acquaintances of mine who were friends of Elliott’s.

    I think the documentary does a good job of helping fans make up their own minds, or at least be a little more comfortable with the subject.

    Thanks for reading!

  2. “His music was the music I listened to on repeat whenever I felt I could not relate with other people and needed a source of contentment.” Thank you for putting into words what I had a hard time describing.

  3. Thanks for your answer,
    I talked to people too, and some don’t think it was a suicide.
    One of them was friends with him towards the end of his life.

    The problem is that Elliott said too many times he wanted to kill himself, that does not help.
    I did quite a lot of research myself and this is not clear at all, even Dr. Scheinin could not conclude.

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