This year marks 50 years in the music industry for Jo Jo Smith
It wasn’t something she was going to celebrate, but thanks to her good mate Lucie Thorne, Jo Jo didn’t really have a choice. Thorne went ahead and booked a tour that sees Smith take the road with Thorne and Hamish Stuart.
‘There are not many people who are going to drop what they are doing for a whole year,’ says Jo Jo of Lucie Thorne. ‘Basically she has employed me for a year. She’s knowledgeable, she knows where to go, she knows how to talk to people. She got a grant and she’s organised the whole thing. I feel really blessed!’ laughs Jo Jo.
It’s not just luck. This is the kind of camaraderie built between musicians who appreciate each other’s work.
‘She has a great respect for me; it’s quite amazing,’ says Smith, ‘not being taken for granted.’
And as a woman in the industry who doesn’t wear heels and skirts, Smith’s career is all about her extraordinary musicianship.
‘I never wanted to fancy up too much, but it’s been strange one, that lady thing,’ reflects Jo Jo on the expectation of women musicians to be conventionally ‘decorative’ as part of the package.
‘Sometimes I look at women and think you look so beautiful in that, that really suits you – but that wasn’t for me. One night when I was in Brisbane playing a gig I had these really high shoes on that my sister-in-law helped me buy. At the end of my show I said thank you very much and I fell over, had my arse in the air; they were 5-inch heels! I laid on that ground and looked up. I stood up, gained some composure, and said thank you again and took that gear off and thought I am never wearing that gear again. I like wearing boots. I love that comfort thing. I much prefer to try to sell my passionate happiness about music than my tits or my bum or my clothes, and I do that really easily…
‘I couldn’t imagine doing anything else,’ says Smith. ‘I started playing when I was 14. I knew I wanted to sing when I was young, I just knew it. It is something that connects with your inner self; it’s not spiritual but it does feed your soul.’
Smith loves Mullum Music Festival, and the strong representation of women on the lineup. Women this year account for half the bill. That’s a parity rarely, if ever, seen at music festivals.
While the show is all about celebrating her career, Jo Jo also champions Lucie’s work.
‘Her songwriting is amazing. I think she is a wonderful writer, she is quite amazing as a writer. I think its an artform, writing good lyrics. There might be one in 50 songs that you get in your writing, but Lucie’s dad’s a poet, and it shows. I look at her lyrics and see how she strings words together. I don’t know if I could say it like that!’
The show presented by Jo Jo Smith and Lucie Thorne was one of the highlights of Bello Winter Music this year, and it’s sure to be something special with Jo Jo coming back to Mullumbimby, the town she once called home.
‘As you know I lived in Mullum so, when I come back, at some level I feel like I am coming home. I never moved back because I couldn’t afford it. It’s where some of my favourite people in the world live, and Glenn Wright (festival director) has been an absolute angel to me. I feel very grateful; I feel love and I feel love accepted.’
Jo Jo Smith presents her show with Lucie Thorne and Hamish Stuart at Mullum Music Festival this year, along with a whole host of incredible women musicians.
For program and ticket information for this festival now in its 10th year (16–19 Nov) go to mullummusicfestival.com.
