JUDGE SMITH

Every month we get inside the mind of one of the biggest names in music. This issue it’s Judge Smith. The singer-songwriter and percussionist co-founded Van der Graaf Generator with Peter Hammill, but left the band after the recording of their first single and went on to form jazz rockers Heebalob, whose line-up included David Jackson. Since then he’s written musicals and operas, and embarked on a solo career. He tells us about his narrative “songstory” style, getting singing lessons from Arthur Brown and the long-awaited world première of Requiem Mass.

Words: Rob Hughes

The Collected Lyrics Of Judge Smith is out now in paperback.

It’s not unusual to find Chris Judge Smith amid a pile of books. This is, after all, a man who’s made the written word his living.

“I like telling stories,” he says over video-call from his home study. “That’s why quite a few of my music projects have been long-form story-based. Or ‘songstories’, as I call them.”

At 76, Smith remains one of Britain’s cult treasures. He’s familiar to Peter Hammill fans through his pivotal role in co-founding Van der Graaf Generator in 1967, when the two teenagers were studying at the University of Manchester. And while Smith admits his musical abilities are limited –both as a singer and drummer –he helped VdGG recruit members, secure them a record deal and appeared on their 1969 debut single, People You Were Going To, playing a customised ‘slide sax’.

He went on to co-found jazzrock outfit Heebalob, whose saxophonist, David Jackson would shortly depart for VdGG.

Van der Graaf Generator in 1967. L-R: Peter Hammill, Judge Smith, Nick Pearne.

VAN DER GRAAF GENERATOR ARCHIVES/ESOTERIC/AEROSOLREISSUE PROMO

But it was as a conceptualist that Smith found his true calling. In the early 70s he instigated an opera –in tandem with Hammill –based around Edgar Allan Poe’s The Fall Of The House Of Usher, an on-off project that took two decades to complete.

Smith spent the interim in myriad ways. He and composer Maxwell Hutchinson created a handful of theatre musicals, beginning with 1976’s The Kibbo Kift, and Smith also wrote for a chamber opera and classical oratorios. His work with Hammill spilled over into the latter’s solo albums, most memorably as creator of Been Alone So Long, Four Pails, Time For A Change and co-writer on The Institute Of Mental Health, Burning.

The advent of digital technology provided the cue for Smith’s sample-laden solo debut proper, 1993’s Dome Of Discovery. But it’s 2000’s Curly’s Airships –the first in his ‘Songstories’ series, exploring a new form of narrative rock music –that serves as his magnum opus. Based around the R101 airship disaster of 1930, which claimed 48 lives, the sprawling double album boasts a parade of guests, among them Arthur Brown, John Ellis, Pete Brown, Hammill and other VdGG alumni. Right now, Smith is enjoying a breather.