If we were to task Fred Smith with picking an international artist to share a stage with, he may not do a very good job. Part of his genius is a humility that makes it impossible for him to think thoughts that are not as big as the people's lives he impacts, just about everywhere he goes.
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"If Paul Simon offered me a support gig, I'd take it," Smith says, walking a fine line between gentility and respect for the greats.
If not on stage, while people take his poetic touch points from his many ventures into territories the world has been at war over for centuries, this courageous national brand now escapes the bullets, lonely soldiers and lonely travels to help fight a war on COVID exiles.
"In March 2020, the pandemic hit," he says. "I took a job in Afghanistan and worked at the Australian embassy in Kabul until August 2021. There were horrendous human logjams at the three functioning gates of the airport. I've never seen such human desperation."
Suffice to say it was a pretty intense couple of weeks.
"With the adrenaline still in my system, I haemorrhaged words on to the page including a song and a two-page poem called Sparrows of Kabul. When I got back to Canberra, I blended this new material in with the original Dust of Uruzgan show to build this new show called Sparrows of Kabul. It is the culmination of 12 years either living or telling Australia's Afghanistan story. An unusually sustained piece of storytelling."
An "unusually sustained" piece of storytelling, his entire life has been about narratives with a capital N. Stitching in tales about his observations and experiences and giving back something that is indescribable.
"My first gig, at age 17, was playing '60s and '70s folk covers with my mate Dave at a gay spaghetti bar called Spaggers, located downstairs in the city were the Fernwood Gym now operates," he says.
And big careers take a while to build.
"I never got around to writing a song worth playing until eight years later when Canberra impresario David Branson challenged me to play something original at one of the cabaret-style affairs he ran," he says.
"I was terrified as I took the stage with my actor mate [award-winning theatre director Iain Sinclair] to perform a comic duet called The Ballad of Hose and Charmaine. As we finished the song, the crowd went nuts. All six of them. But I felt quiet satisfaction that the economics and law degrees I had hitherto to been pursuing had failed to provide. Perhaps I have been chasing that feeling ever since."
When Paul Simon isn't available, the agents may need to make their mind up where this Australian treasure deserves to play next. Anywhere in the world that will have him, no doubt, in bold on a blues festival bill, bringing in Keith Urban's set next time he visits Nicole's home town, or just about every time an alt-country artist visiting Australia needs the kind of gentleman that can stand on his feet and make you weep.
Smith has that kind power in his pinkie finger. The one he plucks his guitar with, while the other one hits the E string in a G chord.
Lucky for him he gave up drinking 20 years ago, or he might get nervous thinking about all those fans waiting to see him perform. To him, that was a fight lost, but a battle won.
"My writing has always been informed by context one way or another. As I moved from comedy cabaret into playing pubs like the Wig and Pen and the Phoenix, my song writing shifted and I evolved into one of Canberra's leading purveyors of thinking men's drinking songs," he says.
"Then I had a falling out with alcohol, which combined with the opportunity to travel to Bougainville, Solomon Islands and United States, shifted my writing in the direction of what you might call travelogue albums.
"I found an audience for these at the folk festivals - cycles of songs that hold together to tell a bigger story."
With his tale featured on Australian Story in 2013, Smith still struggles to pen his many memoirs and observations into moments that shimmer and blow minds. But somehow he manages to do it, each and every time. And now organises international diplomats to attend his shows. People with real influence in world affairs. It's that influence he has in his pinkie finger, should he choose to wield it. Grace, gentility, and an art that is purely his own. No one does it like him.
"I first performed this program of songs at the Canberra Playhouse on February 17. The room was full of soldiers, public servants, and their families as well as recent Afghan evacuees. It was an emotional evening," he says.
"So many Canberrans gave so much to the evacuation, mission working long hours into the night in buildings around the city. We give our hearts to these jobs. The evacuees at the concert reported feeling very supported and embraced - which was the purpose of the concert."
Performing this song cycle on Afghanistan's national day, August 19, watch Smith step out into the light and warm up the room with a large round of applause.
"With the one-year anniversary of the evacuation approaching, I had a feeling that there might be an appetite in the community to convey our solidarity with the Afghan people. So I'm working with the Afghan Embassy beyond Taliban control to put on this concert.
Like Australia's Wilfred Owen - capturing insights from war and bringing them home - this great man will be remembered long after the impacts of COVID-19 on the world. But first, he probably has plans to make sure no one nominates him for the job of prime minister in six to eight years, because he probably needs some time off from saving the world.
Fred Smith will perform Sparrows of Kabul at the National Press Club, Barton. August 19, 7.30pm. Tickets: humanitix.com
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