Alfie Smith - Every Rome Needs A Nero (2024)

Alfie Smith is a prolific songwriter, an accomplished performer and talented multi-instrumentalist. Alfie Smith releases his eighth album, Every Rome Needs A Nero, and that is excellent news for blues lovers. The Hamilton-based troubadour is a popular and crowd-pleasing fixture on the Ontario’s blues / folk / roots festivals and club circuit, but it has been a full decade since his last release, Come On In My Kitchen, a duo record with his wife, Nicole Christian. His return to the recording arena with Every Rome Needs A Nero finds Alfie at the height of his creative powers. He is a triple threat: a guitar virtuoso fluent on slide and vintage National and resonator instruments, an eloquent songwriter in the classic blues tradition, and a powerful singer with a voice to match his formidable physical presence. That deep voice sounds like it has been dredged from the depths of the muddy Mississippi River. It is rich and earthy, and capable of expressing tenderness, melancholy, joy, and, in the case of the new album’s title track, righteous anger.

Alfie Smith’s recording career now spans more than a quarter century, beginning with his 1998 debut, Alfred John Smith. Subsequent albums were mostly self-released, with a couple coming out on noted Kitchener independent roots label Busted Flat. Smith’s multiple talents have been recognized by both The Hamilton Music Awards, which nominated him 12 times, in the Best Male Vocalist and Best Guitarist categories, and the Toronto Blues Society, who selected him to represent them at the prestigious International Blues Challenge in Memphis in 2010. Alfie’s prodigious skill as an instrumentalist on banjo, 7-string slide guitar, lap steel, resonator guitar and more has brought him endorsements from, amongst others, Goldtone Banjos, Godin Guitar, and Goodman Guitars, who named a guitar model after him.