Whit Smith

Oct 11, 2024 | acousticguitar.com | Isa Burke |Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers |Whit Smith |Kate Koenig

There’s a humility and a groundedness to Maya de Vitry’s music. Maybe it’s the result of growing up in a musical family in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, learning songs around the kitchen table and playing in Sunday morning gospel-hour jams. Her years of traveling and busking and camping out at old-time festivals surely play a role, too.

Dec 31, 2023 | acousticguitar.com | Greg Olwell |Danny Carnahan |Joseph Skibell |Whit Smith

You never know when you’re going to see somebody for the last time, and I was fortunate enough to have dinner with Michael Chapdelaine and his wife, Suzanne Dove, in September, just two months before the guitarist-composer died unexpectedly on November 16. They were in Atlanta for a conference Suzanne was attending, and we met at a wonderful vegan Caribbean-fusion restaurant in Midtown where we were able to sit outside. I’d known Michael for about ten years.