Quality Americana

Today we bring you a special album from a real LSU Tiger. This collection of songs from Louisiana native Eric Schmitt is a wonderfully original take on folk music with a bit of that Gulf Coast mojo.

Schmitt grew up in Lake Charles before moving off to the Texas Hill Country for college. He spent time in San Marcos and Austin where he was able to see Jerry Jeff Walker and Joe Ely, and attend the Kerrville Folk Festival. 

“It was a cool place to be to experience a lot of different things,” Schmitt said. “I still love the Hill Country.”  

Growing up in Lake Charles, Schmitt was influenced by his uncle Paul who played piano in traditional jazz bands, and later recorded with Willie Nelson.

“I loved Louis Armstrong,” Schmitt said, “that was my first musical hero. Because my family spanned all the decades, I just was surrounded by music from all the different eras, and I kind of just grew up around all of that. Absorbed it, you know.”

He started taking piano and guitar seriously when he left for school.

“A couple of nights I got drunk with friends and took our guitars out on Sixth Street and made enough money to drink for the night,” Schmitt said with a laugh. “We’d play old Beatles songs and stuff like that. I wasn’t really writing songs till later.” 

While in graduate school, Schmitt dabbled in fiction writing before turning his focus to songs.

“That’s about when I discovered Townes Van Zandt, Guy Clark and those people,” Schmitt said. “It took me a couple of years to make the transition, but I started writing more, then going out and playing my own songs.” 

Now an english professor at Louisiana State University, he’s been influenced by “people who can tell stories.” Schmitt spends his summers performing and teaching songwriting workshops. He’s the only professor at LSU that offers a college credit for the craft.

Louisiana

The piano and sparse lead guitar drive “Louisiana,” a beautiful ode to the bayou state. 

“That goes back to my Lake Charles upbringing,” Schmitt said. “I don’t do a lot of fishing any more, but you almost can’t help but do it over there because you’re connected to all kinds of water. So I would fish just in the little ol’ rivers that run through town.”

Out there they would catch trout and redfish, and hang around the ship channels. 

“I think just as a kid being around that water and seeing all that, the way it connects to the world just kind of played into my imagination,” Schmitt said. “For a while as a young adult I lived back in the Lake Charles area for a bit, lived next door to some dudes who would just go out fishing everyday, come in and fry their fish and stuff and they’d get drunk and kind of talk romanitically about Louisiana.”

On trips through Texas, Schmitt heard so many songs about the Lone Star State around campfires and song circles, but never seemed to hear any about Louisiana. He knew it was time to write his memories into a song.

Buckets

He’s also been influenced by blues stylings with “Buckets.”

“A lot of times when I’m writing songs I’m thinking about my experiences, and sometimes I’m just like ‘it’s time to write a song’ and I try to let my imagination take over while I’m doing it,” Schmitt said. 

Schmitt said he brought a few different stoires together to craft “Buckets” that’s played in an open tuning. You can hear him tapping his foot in the recording. The album truly has a natural feel as if you’re on the back porch strumming along with the band. 

“Everyone was dropping off citrus that time of year,” Schmitt said. “You’d come home every day there’d be another bucket of tangerines on your front porch and you’d be like ‘this is great, but what the hell am I going to do with this?’”

Fool’s Parade

“Fool’s Parade” was another stand out on the album, the story loosely follows an encounter Schmitt witnessed in a club. He crafted the arrangement for the fellow musicians including James McCann on pedal steel. Everything was recorded analog with tape.

“It kind of limits what you can do,” Schmitt said. “You can’t just sit there and make five hundred takes because tape’s expensive and you’ll wear it out if you keep recording, so you have to go in prepared. It’s in the moment.”   

Most of the tracks were recorded live with minimal overdubs, and the piano track for “Louisiana” was recorded in Schmitt’s home.

Support the Artist

Stream and purchase Wait for the Night on Bandcamp.

More information about Eric Schmitt can be found here.

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