The Cedar Presents An Evening with CHRIS SMITHER and LOUDON WAINWRIGHT III Wednesday, April 8, 2026 / Doors: 6:30 PM / Show: 7:30 PM All Ages Seated $45 Advance, $50 Day of Show Buy Tickets *For Cedar Presented shows, a $4 facility fee is included in the ticket price (Ticket fee info here). This is a seated show with general admission, first-come-first-served seating. The Cedar is happy to reserve seats for patrons who require special seating accommodations. To request access accommodations, please go to our Access page. For Cedar presented shows, online ticket sales typically end one hour before the door time, and then, based on availability, tickets will be available at the door. Tickets purchased at the door will include a $1 Eventbrite fee. ABOUT THIS SHOW Two songwriting legends return to The Cedar stage. Two careers that span 50+ years performing together for one incredible night. Do not miss Loudon Wainwright III and Chris Smither. Listen CHRIS SMITHER Photo by Joanna Chattman Born in Miami, during World War II, Chris Smither grew up in New Orleans where he first started playing music as a child. The son of a Tulane University professor, he was taught the rudiments of instrumentation by his uncle on his mother’s ukulele. “Uncle Howard,” Smither says, “showed me that if you knew three chords, you could play a lot of the songs you heard on the radio. And if you knew four chords, you could pretty much rule the world.” With that bit of knowledge under his belt, he was hooked. “I’d loved acoustic music – specifically the blues – ever since I first heard Lightnin’ Hopkins’ Blues In My Bottle album. I couldn’t believe the sound Hopkins got. At first I thought it was two guys playing guitar. My style, to a degree, came out of trying to imitate that sound I heard.” In his early twenties, Smither turned his back on his anthropology studies and headed to Boston at the urging of legendary folk singer Eric von Schmidt. It was the mid-’60s and acoustic music thrived in the streets and coffeehouses there. Smither forged lifelong friendships with many musicians, including Bonnie Raitt who went on to record his songs, “Love You Like A Man” and “I Feel the Same. (Their friendship has endured as their career paths intertwined over the years.) What quickly evolved from his New Orleans and Cambridge musical experiences is his enduring, singular guitar sound – a beat-driven finger-picking, strongly influenced by the playing of Mississippi John Hurt and Lightnin’ Hopkins, layered over the ever-present backbeat of his rhythmic, tapping feet (always mic’d in performance).Chris returns to The Cedar behind his 20th release, All About the Bones, (Signature Sounds/Mighty Albert). The new recording is as elemental as the inky black shadows cast by a shockingly bright moon. Featuring eight brand new Chris Smither songs and Smither renditions of Eliza Gilkyson’s “Calm Before the Storm” and also Tom Petty’s “Time to Move On”, the listener is welcomed into...
