Fred Smith

Photo of man holding a guitar and smiling

Fred Smith

“This remarkable singer-songwriter – who at various times reveals influences that range from Paul Kelly via Lou Reed to Loudon Wainwright III to Leonard Cohen – keeps releasing amazingly accomplished albums. In tune with the times and prepared to reach beyond predictable folk formats, he is endlessly innovative and creative.” (Bruce Elder, Sydney Morning Herald, 2008).

Fred Smith is a favourite on the Australian festival circuit much loved for his wit, gift for story and melody, and sublime collaborations with Liz Frencham and The Spooky Men’s Chorale. Now at last, the rest of Australia is catching up. He was the subject of an ABC Australian Story feature about his work in Afghanistan and the South Pacific.

Performances and workshops

  • In concert: Saturday 11:45am, Main Stage
  • Multi-media presentation : Sparrows of Kabul, Sunday 4pm, Main Stage
  • Showcase concert: Sunday 7:30pm, Main Stage

Fred’s bio

Fred Smith has spent the last 20 years all over the joint: working on stabilisation missions in Afghanistan and the South Pacific, touring North America and travelling the Australian festival circuit. He has released about twelve CDs, mostly solo but also some collaborations with Liz Frencham and the Spooky Men’s Chorale.

Fred cut his teeth performing comic and satirical ballads in bars and festivals in the late 90’s. His early performances were described as “Noel Coward meets Louden Wainwright”. His debut album Soapbox gained cult status in his home town selling over 3000 copies in Canberra.

In 1999, he travelled to work on multinational Peace Monitoring operations in Bougainville. Fred became something of a celebrity on Bougainville hosting his own pidgin language radio show and collaborating with the Australian Army and local musicians to record and release 20,000 copies of a ‘Songs of Peace’ cassette.

Fred returned from Bougainville to record the ‘Bagarap Empires’ CD (pronounced ‘Buggerup’). The CD won rave reviews and the National Film and Sound Archives award for Best New Release of 2002. It was described in Canada’s Penguin Eggs magazine as “an amazing piece of work. Truly folk music at its best – chronicling a period in a peoples’ history that few of us know anything about.”

In May 2003, Fred returned to Bougainville. Film-maker Nick Agafonoff followed Fred and his Bulmakau band around during the final weeks of the Peace Monitoring Group’s operations. The documentary Bougainville Sky was released in Nov. 2004.

Earlier that year Fred met Liz Frencham. He had written an album’s worth of songs for a woman’s voice and was looking for the right gal to sing them. They released their first joint album, Into My Room, to critical acclaim in the second half of 2003 and went on to become a major force on the Australian festival circuit. In 2007 they released their second album Lovethongs – a collection of Fred’s love songs. Lovethongs was rated one of Top Ten Albums of 2007 by Sue Barrett in Rhythms Magazine and won rave reviews in the Sydney Morning Herald and Melbourne Age.

Meanwhile, Fred had moved to Washington DC and spent three years touring throughout the United States, Canada, and Australia. He returned to Australia in 2008 to release “Texas”. This CD captured the zeitgeist of an America divided in the second term of the Bush administration. It touched on subjects from Barak to Iraq with the insight, balance and irony that have made Smith one of Australia’s most beloved songwriters.

Then, on a Friday night at the 2008 National Folk Festival, Fred fell to drinking with Stephen Taberner in the session bar. This led to an impromptu performance a couple of nights later which saw the Fred Smith Band and the mighty Spooky Mens’ Chorale combine to spray manly odours all around the Merry Muse tent. This in turn led to the Urban Sea Shanties CD (which won the 2009 National Film and Sound Archives Award). It’s a collection of thinking man’s drinking songs really.

In July 2009, Fred went to Uruzgan province, Afghanistan. His main job was to build relationships with tribal leaders to improve cooperation and understanding between the local community and the Coalition Forces, and to act as a bridge between these two vastly different cultures.

He served most of his 18-month tour of Uruzgan province on the Multinational Base in Tarin Kowt and at a Forward Operating Base in the Chora Valley. Smith put bands together from musically competent soldiers on base and they played regular concerts in Tarin Kowt where his songs were on everybody’s iPod. He toured Holland in November 2010 on the strength of it.

Whilst in Afghanistan, Fred wrote a collection of powerful songs about his experiences and the realities of life for soldiers in this difficult war. These songs were released in 2011 on Dust of Uruzgan. The album won featured reviews and front pages in The Australian, The Sydney Morning Herald, and The Melbourne Age.

Find out more about Fred