Jo Jo Smith is one of Australia's greatest musical treasures, a sexagenarian pocket-rocket, soul-singing, groove-driving tour de force and 2017 marks her 50th year in the biz.
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To celebrate this extraordinary, generous life of music-making, Jo Jo is hitting the road with her dear friends and musical comrades Lucie Thorne and Hamish Stuart, playing dozens of their favourite intimate venues across the land, including 5 Church St, Bellingen on Thursday November 16.
A radical exponent of the power of love and music - and certainly under-known given all the heavyweights from across the decades and genres whom she’s worked with and influenced - Jo Jo Smith has a somewhat cult status, deeply revered by fans and peers alike. As Thorne puts it, “I sure don’t know any half-arsed Jo Jo fans. You’ve either experienced the joy and wonder that is being in the same room as this woman singing and playing, or…you haven’t heard her yet!”
Lucie Thorne and Jo Jo Smith first met nearly a decade ago, and became fast friends and huge fans of each other’s work.
Lucie has been recording and touring in a sensational duo collaboration with legendary drummer Hamish Stuart for nearly a decade too, quietly carving out their singularly poetic spacious sound.
Jo Jo and Hamish have worked together numerous times throughout the past 30 years.
The undeniable creative camaraderie and chemistry between all three artists will underpin the live format of the tour featuring Smith, Thorne and Stuart in various combinations. This tour brings together three of our country's finest talents for a series of unmissable, powerful, joyful, intimate concerts that are bound to be the stuff of more legendary stories in Jo Jo Smith’s full musical life.
"Jo Jo Smith drops jaws and melts hearts with every performance" – Colin Thompson, Bendigo Blues Festival Director
“Jo Jo has been an incredible singer since before I started playing the drums - and that's quite a while! She puts every ounce of commitment into each note she sings, which is always sure and true. Watch her light up a crowd and like me the first time I heard her, you can't help but become a fan” – Hamish Stuart
“I've been lucky enough to grow up with Jo Jo's music. But I do remember a specific moment at an intimate show when it hit me how brilliant she was. There was this deft capturing of the crowd with her rich vocals, they flowed over us almost visibly (like amber, like honey, like the love light she sings about!) Then prickles of joy. I realised I was in the presence of a master. And boy did it feel good” – Ella Hooper
“Jo Jo has been an inspiration to myself and many other musicians in Australia for many years" – Renee Geyer
“Jo Jo Smith is a true soul singer. She sings soul music. She sings with and through her soul. Smith has a mighty weapon in her voice, she reserves its power striking only when necessary” - Marty Jones, Rhythms Magazine
"Thorne writes some of the most simple and beautiful songs you will hear" – The Age
www.jojosmithsoul.com
www.luciethorne.com