Back in 1998 I started writing about music, and virtually every artist I interviewed mentioned Elliott Smith as their favourite and/or major musical influence. Elliott’s songs for the movie GOOD WILL HUNTING provided the launch pad needed for the artist and his music in the UK, while in the USA an underground musician suddenly became very ‘overground’. I started to acquire Elliott’s albums and loved what I heard. He had an acute sense of melody and combined this with superb introspective lyrics and one of the gentlest, most beguiling voices I’ve ever heard. So when the opportunity to review his live performance early in 1999 came I jumped at it. Ben & Jason provided wonderful support at a very early stage in their career. But it was Elliott that the sell-out student audience had come to see, in his acoustic guise. I sensed a very slight air of disappointment around me therefore when he used an electric guitar and gave a rockier interpretation of many of his best songs. But they loved him all the same, and he seemed in a good mood. That was the first and last time I saw Elliott Smith.

When the terrible news broke that he was no longer with us, I rushed to my music collection and couldn’t find a single Elliott Smith album. Then I remembered that a few months ago my daughter had asked to borrow them. Within hours they were back and playing endlessly. My daughter then rang me to say she’d found the original set list and ticket stub from the concert. It dawned on me that both my son and daughter had demanded to go to the concert with me. At the time, my daughter was fourteen and my son was twenty-one years of age, and I realised that Elliott Smith had (uniquely) touched people of all ages.

I never managed to meet Elliott but both his music and that performance, for me, spoke volumes. On stage he seemed humble, vulnerable and shy, and there was also a strong sense that music was his chosen and most comfortable method of communication. I believe it was partially this persona that drew fans to him in droves; people who were fatigued by the marketing and fashion climate that existed then and is stronger than ever now. Elliottt’s beguiling, fragile voice also intrigued me. When confronted with his quite devastating lyrics, his voice and those tantalising pop melodies appeared to form a barrier to us getting too close - we were kept at arm’s length from the agony of devastating introspection.

Take for example the lyrics to Bled White: “I’m a colour reporter, but the city’s been bled white, and the doctor orders drinks all night to take away this curse, but it makes me feel much worse, bled white, so I wait for the f-train, and connect through a friend of mine, to a yesterdaydream, ‘cos I’ll have to be high to drag the sunset down…” And from the album EITHER/OR, lines from Pictures Of Me: “…here come another guy, jailer who sells personal hells, who’d like to see me down on my fucking knees, everybody’s dying just to get the disease… so sick and tired of all those pictures of me…”

There will no doubt be media speculation about the how and why of Elliott’s sudden and dramatic death, but for me his departure signals the loss of yet another young and highly gifted singer/songwriter. And in a music environment that cries out for more meaning, more honesty, and the level of talent that Elliott Smith so potently possessed. Heaven’s gain is our loss, and I feel sadder today than I did yesterday.