Caitlyn Smith's 'High & Low' prepares country star for most virtuoso creative era

Since the world was befallen by and emerged from COVID-19, country star Caitlyn Smith built a new home in Minnesota and self-produced two of her albums, mainly by herself. She did it all while being married and raising two children under five.

Her stellar 2022 album "High" told half the story of how she survived this creative evolution.

Via 2023's deluxe album-style continuation "High & Low," (out April 14, 2023), a story as much crafted in the euphoria she felt hearing the work of artists like Ingrid Andress, Kelsea Ballerini and Maren Morris taking what she called, in a 2022 Tennessean feature, "a creative journey to own the power of my voice," is buffered by "wading into the emotional ebbs and flows of self-discovery."

Smith's still behind the boards with Academy of Country Music Award-nominated engineer Gena Johnson (John Prine's "I Remember Everything") here and still achieving what she calls "a fuller range of emotion than [she's] ever achieved."

"In this season of my life, I'm being truthful with breaking open the scary thoughts that run through my mind that I'm afraid to say out loud," she said.

"This dress fits me perfect, but I wish I was thinner / The stories I'm telling don't tell the whole truth / This smile isn't real, but it looks good in pictures / Give me an Oscar for fooling the room," Smith sings on album closer "The Great Pretender." It's ego suicide to the highest degree, giving self-love a bad name by being the person responsible for piercing your own heart with a lyrical bullet.

"Life-work balance is actually a s**t-show to achieve," says Smith.

She adds, "finally trusting myself with streamlining how I communicate my music to establish my artistic stamp, writing exactly what I wanted to say and exploring my emotions how I want to explore them was difficult, but I [achieved it]."

Also, "Lately," which has received a particularly arresting acoustic take by Smith, was initially a "big rock 'n roll" song inspired by Sheryl Crow-style guitar work. However, upon further review, dialing back the noise and replacing it with torch-song-style piano playing revealed the song's emotive heart.

The sad, lovelorn song includes the raw notion of taking "10,000 hours to learn Beethoven sonatas" to create distractions during the time it takes to overcome heartbreak.

"Some of the songs on 'High & Low' sound like everything. Others — to make what I'm saying sound more believable — [required me to stop] putting things in the way of my vocal performance," she said.

Five years have elapsed since her major label artistic debut and a decade has passed since she initially made her way to Nashville. Even more, she's now a parent of two and music is less a passionate pastime and more a literal way to put a roof over her family's head.

Those changes weighed heavily in the creative process Smith undertook in the making of her latest album.

"So often, I've taken the 'guts' away from my music by chasing what [contemporary] hits sound like. Learning how to serve my emotions in the body of the song itself has allowed me to learn how to use, or not use, my [metaphorical] 'new box of paint' of effects to create bright, dead, warm and cold dynamics ("'Alaska' has chilling steel guitars and icy cymbals") to color songs into their fullest expression."

"Growing past excelling as a singer and songwriter has been a beautiful experience," Smith continues.

She believes that the "intricate trial and error" process of drastically re-shaping the sound of the rest of her career involved committing notions like "simple reading is the hardest writing" to memory but also developing choruses that feel honest enough for people to trust their life stories to singing those lyrics.

"I'm a natural-born people pleaser. So, to grow from chasing what other people perceive as the success of country radio airplay and instead, take more personal ownership of my own creative direction is important," says Smith to The Tennessean.

"The artist I really want to be doesn't exist as an image on an awards show step-and-repeat. Instead, she exists in the souls of the country music fanbase."

She exists in those souls via independent venue gigs through June 2023 that align with her continued support of the National Independent Venue Association's Emergency Relief Fund.

“I wanted to bring my fans into the room with me to where these songs began. Feelings. Stories. One voice and one instrument. Songs in their purest form. Sharing these wonderfully intimate rooms with people allows me to connect and be more vulnerable than I have been able to be in years [as a live performer].”

"Instead of cutting little ditties, I'd instead like to tell the truth and be an inspiring voice that lets people feel seen as incapable of experiencing tough, emotional heart-spaces," Smith continues. "The code of success in music is cracked when we ask ourselves if we believe the words we're saying out loud."

Pausing to contemplate the weight of the many revealing statements she's made in her conversation, she adds one more.

"I feel so lucky to live a life where I can create art from experiences from all facets of my existence."

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Caitlyn Smith's 'High & Low' prepares country star for virtuoso era