Elliott Smith

Gentle singer with a delicate message of brutality and despair
Elliott Smith
Elegantly crafted anatomies of despair: Elliott Smith
The American singer-songwriter Elliott Smith has been found dead at his Los Angeles home aged 34, killed by a single, apparently self-inflicted stab wound. It seems bitterly appropriate that someone who wrote delicate songs about brutal subjects, and frequently became frustrated that he had to answer the question "Why are you so sad?" should die in such a shocking, violent and lonely manner.

Chosen by the director Gus Van Sant to provide songs for the 1997 film Good Will Hunting, Smith, whose roots were deep in the American independent music scene, found himself with an Oscar nomination the following year. His performance at the award ceremony was the most incongruous in the all-too-brief career of this shy, but playful musician, whose small, soft voice and scalpel-sharp observations of the wilder side of life won him a devoted following.

The first time we met, I had been prompted by the Melody Maker to probe his drug and psychiatric problems, notorious even at the time of his first UK appearances. He talked at length of his love of the trumpeter and singer Chet Baker, and was charming, frank and acutely aware of the terrible glamour inherent in the mythology of the junkie musician. "The truth," he said quietly, "is much happier and sadder than that."

He was born Steven Paul Smith in Omaha, Nebraska, but grew up near Dallas, Texas. Displaying an early aptitude for music, he learnt piano and guitar from the age of nine. Moving to Portland, Oregon, he joined his first band, Stranger Than Fiction, at the Lincoln high school. Calling himself Elliott Stillwater-Rotter, he majored in philosophy and political science at Hampshire College, Massachusetts, where he co-founded the band A Murder Of Crows.

After graduation, Smith and his college friend Neil Gust moved back to Portland, well known for its fertile underground music scene, and founded Heatmiser. They shared vocal and writing duties, Smith's songs typically folkier than Gust's, Gust's more abrasive. Also in the band were Tony Lash, now better known as a producer, and Sam Coomes, who would play for a while in Smith's backing band, and in the band Quasi.

Between 1992 and 1996, Heatmiser released three albums and an EP, but by the time of their final record, Mic City Sons, Smith's first two solo albums (the intimate and acoustic Roman Candle, 1994, and Elliott Smith, 1995) had generated more acclaim than the band had managed, and they split. Smith's first solo album, either/or, followed in 1997. It was also the first of his records to receive a full UK release, through the respected independent label Domino, which also licensed Roman Candle and Elliott Smith for British release.

Coming at a time when the jingoistic strut of Britpop had begun to ring a little hollow, Smith's quiet, elegantly crafted anatomies of despair generated an enormous response. Here was music free of ego, untainted by commercial consideration; here was a songwriter whose intense fragility granted him extraordinary insights. No one has encapsulated the heady mix of danger and wonder that comes from recreational drug use as captivatingly as a couplet from his St Ides Heaven: "Walking out between parked cars/with my head full of stars."

Signing to Dreamworks in the wake of his Oscar nomination, he released two further albums, XO (1998) and Figure 8 (2000), both of which took advantage of the bigger budgets now available to make considerably more elaborate arrangements.

The second, and final, time we met, Smith was working on tracks at London's Abbey Road studios, famous for birthing the Beatles' albums. By then, he had grown more accustomed to the ridiculous demands of cultish stardom - the lack of privacy, the obsessive fans, what Joni Mitchell called "the star-making machinery behind the popular song". Infinitely more at ease with himself, he displayed an endearingly childlike glee at being able to record in rooms where his heroes had recorded, and use equipment they had used. This, he suggested, made the ballast of celebrity bearable.

At the time of his death, he had amassed upwards of 40 songs for his sixth album, which had a working title of From The Basement On The Hill. Keen that he at least release something, Dreamworks had offered him a contractual holiday - the opportunity to put out a record away from the promotional demands of a major label release, most likely through Domino in Europe.

Though recent US solo shows sometimes saw him sullen, unfocused or incoherent, friends reported he was on the road to recovery. Unfortunately, it seems the long war he had waged against himself had damaged him more than even he realised.

He is survived by his girlfriend, his mother and father, a sister, a half-brother and a half-sister.

· Steven Paul 'Elliott' Smith, musician, born August 6 1969; died October 21 2003