An Evening with LOUDON WAINWRIGHT III and CHRIS SMITHER

The Cedar Presents

An Evening with LOUDON WAINWRIGHT III and CHRIS SMITHER

Wednesday, April 8, 2026 / Doors: 7:00 PM / Show: 7:30 PM

All Ages

Seated

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. 

LOUDON WAINWRIGHT III

Loudon Wainwright III begins another year of his career in 2025 with the January release of the new album “Loudon Live in London” which was recorded during a 3-night residency at Nell’s Jazz and Blues club in 2024.  Then in February, he is a special guest on the UK’s prestigious “Transatlantic Sessions” tour – the highly acclaimed concert series which for the last 30 years has explored and celebrated the rich musical traditions that connect Scotland, Ireland and the U.S.

Born in Chapel Hill, N.C. in 1946, Loudon Wainwright III came to fame when “Dead Skunk” became a Top 20 hit in 1972.  He had studied acting at Carnegie-Mellon University but dropped out to partake in the Summer of Love in San Francisco and wrote his first song in 1968 (“Edgar,” about a lobsterman in Rhode Island).  Loudon was signed to Atlantic Records by Nesuhi Ertegun, and after that was lured by Clive Davis to Columbia Records, which released “Dead Skunk.”  His songs have since been recorded by the likes of Bonnie Raitt, Johnny Cash, Earl Scruggs, Kate & Anna McGarrigle, his son Rufus Wainwright, and Mose Allison among others.

To learn more about LOUDON WAINWRIGHT III:

• Visit his website here

CHRIS SMITHER

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 some gothic mansion on an imaginary New Orleans street, and there in the lamplit parlor confronts the band, a minimalist skeleton crew: Smither’s inimitable propulsive guitar and rumbling baritone are joined seamlessly to producer David Goodrich’s carpetbag of instruments, Zak Trojano’s rock-steady, primal drumming, BettySoo’s diaphanous harmony vocals, and the flat, mournful flood of Jazz legend Chris Cheek’s saxophone. Recorded at Sonelab Studios in Easthampton MA by Justin Pizzoferrato All About the Bones has a feel that is somehow baroque and austere at once.

To learn more about Chris Smither:

• Visit his website here