These days, all God’s chilluns are from New Orleans, and no CD crosses my desk that doesn’t announce the artist as coming from New Orleans. I think the press release for the new Interpol album announces the band as being Charity Hospital babies. Jake Smith’s bio leads, “Hailing from the jazz and blues-influenced swamplands of southern Louisiana, New Orleans native Jake Smith delivers both spirit and soul on Real, his major label debut,” so now we know. On one hand, you’d think we’d have heard of Smith if he was from here, but this isn’t always that welcoming a music scene. The West Bank’s Belong and much of the area’s electronica scene flies under the radar.

 

Jake Smith could have been overlooked because he’s working the unabashedly pop side of the street, singing acoustic pop a la Jason Mraz, Gavin DeGraw and the like. Any trace of swamp is carefully scrubbed out, but he is a good singer who effectively shifts into his upper register with soul. Unfortunately, Smith’s music is about as distinctive as his name. It’s well-made, but good singers expressing banal sentiments in unmemorable material come in six-packs, 12-packs in Los Angeles.