“He pulled out this D-28 and it sounded magical. It felt like this is the path I needed to be on. I committed to it completely”: How acoustic wizard John Smith went back to the future in search of acoustic transcendence

John Smith performs live with a Fylde acoustic guitar.

The reasoning behind John Smith’s new album is really quite straightforward. After 20 years in the business, he decided it was time to celebrate by looking back to his early albums and selecting some songs that he feels have taken off in new directions after playing them for so long on the road.

To embellish things still further, he enlisted the help of some of the top folk artists on the circuit today, including The Staves, Siobhan Miller, John McCusker and Lisa Hannigan. The result is a wonderful revisiting of some of John’s early repertoire.