Williamsburg singer-songwriter Canaan Smith had been writing songs for himself and other country artists on Nashville’s music row for 15 years.
For much of that time, his focus was on crafting catchy songs to run up the charts, but last summer he tired of that strategy and, instead, turned inward to write songs that more accurately depicted his most treasured memories.
Little by little, Smith teased fans with songs (like last summer’s “Colder Than You”) that showed an increasingly authentic glimpse of the Virginia-raised musician’s life, with plans for a full album in his long view.
That album, “High Country Sound,” releases Friday, and true to Smith’s vision, each track exposes another layer of the 38-year-old through tales both raucous and romantic, from his childhood all the way up to his newest role as dad.
“I’m embracing who I am. I’m embracing the depth and full spectrum of me in a way that I never have because I was just worried about having a commercial hit, or success measured by statistics and all of that instead of being measured by being proud of a project,” he said in a phone interview.
It’s been his most rewarding musical endeavor to date, he said, because he was able to make the album his way.
“High Country Sound” is Smith’s first time co-producing his music. He’s a credited writer on every song and the only producer on eight. The four remaining songs were co-produced with Brian Kelley and Tyler Hubbard of Florida Georgia Line, Smith’s college friends and the owners of Round Here Records, where he is the premiere artist.
The process allowed him to feel more connected than ever to his music.
“It’s the heart and soul of who I am,” he said.
Where’d he write and record most of it? While quarantining at his Tennessee home. When he’s not in his at-home studio laying down tracks, he’s looking after his baby girl, Virginia Rose.
The pandemic might’ve kept him off the road and confined to one place, but it ended up giving Smith all the freedom he needed to dig deep.
“I wrote a lot of these songs in my garage. I recorded half the album in my garage under a blanket,” he said. “There was such a sense of comfort that only comes from feeling at home.”
The stories within run the gamut of youthful life lessons, including falling in and out of a love for the first time, running the wilds underneath a hot summer sun, moving away from your home and creating a new one hundreds of miles away.
The opening track, “Grounded,” serves as the tone-setter for the album. Smith refers to the track as his “tribute to the people and the place” that made him who he is, even paying homage to his hometown area code.
“757, still got it! We were right on the 804 line, right where Williamsburg meets Toano,” he said with a chuckle. “I’m not running from anything.”
That is, until you hit track five, “Catch Me If You Can.”
Didn’t grow up running through the mountains? That’s fine. Smith gives you an audible taste of what that life is like with his gritty, bluegrass-adjacent moonshiner story.
Smith’s never made any shine himself, he said, but he can relate to its outlaw spirit.
“I’m always going against the grain. You can’t tell me nothin’, you know. It’s who I am at the core,” he said.
The album’s ripe with love letters to old flames and haunts — and George Strait mentions, too — but “Sweet Virginia” is one of Smith’s favorites. He wrote it about his move to Nashville at 18, watching Virginia’s mountains fade away in his rear-view during the trek.
Nearly all of the songs were written recently, with the exception of “American Dream.” Smith said the song was penned a decade ago and just hadn’t found a place on any of his previous projects.
“High Country Sound” finally felt like its home. Smith said the record is about a realization he had sitting on his couch one afternoon many years ago.
“I was already living the dream. I had a healthy family who loves me, friends I can go to anytime for anything,” he said. “People are always hustling to get more and have more. I don’t think that’s the American dream.”
For Smith, the ideal has always been more about the journey than possessions or how high he could climb a ladder.
“Ultimately,” he said, “what matters is the ones you love and can count on.”
Reading between the lines, that’s the very soul of Smith’s album. Counting your blessings and being grateful for what you have, the good people in your life, and where you came from.
Choosing “Losing Sleep Over a Girl,” the album closer that moves from Smith’s first date with his then-girlfriend, now-wife, to buying his first home and the birth of his first child, sets him up perfectly for another album grounded in reality, with fatherhood closing the chapter on his rowdier days and kicking open the door to his next adventure.
Simply, it’s Smith’s full-circle moment, and he’s primed to putting his life’s memories to song.
“I think I had trailed off in the wrong direction as far as what I was aiming for. Having recalibrated has given me a sense of sticking my flag in the ground, and we’re just getting started.”
“High Country Sound” is available for stream and purchase on all major platforms. Follow Smith on Instagram, (@canaansmith), Facebook (facebook.com/CanaanSmithMusic), and Twitter (@canaansmith).
Amy Poulter, 757-446-2705, amy.poulter@pilotonline.com
