Legend has it that Smith also took the spelling of his first name from the neighborhood's Elliott Avenue. "Condor Avenue," a song Smith wrote at age 17 that later became the centerpiece for 1994's Roman Candle, his first solo album.Ī house Smith shared with friends in the early 1990s on Southeast 16th Avenue near Division Street was the crucible of several early musical projects. "She took the Oldsmobile out past Condor Avenue/ The fairground's lit / A drunk man sits by the gate she's driving though/ Got his hat tipped back bottle back in between his teeth/ Looks like he's buried in sand at the beach." He was born Steven Paul Smith but started going by Elliott because he thought "Steve" sounded too "jockish." At Lincoln, Smith played in a band called Stranger Than Fiction, belonged to the National Honor Society and graduated with the Class of 1987 before heading to Hampshire College in Massachusetts. Smith enrolled here after moving from Duncanville, Texas, at age 14 to live with his father and siblings.
And while it's easy to hear the despair in the singer's lyrics, Elliott Smith's life-and music-can't be judged only by its ending. 21, when Smith died at a Los Angeles hospital from an apparently self-inflicted knife wound. Even though the musician left Portland five years ago, each song he has written since contains a new piece of history for our town. To others, Smith's tales about living on the margins of misery captured the city's dark side, while his gritty realism delivered beauty, too. And up until last week, Portland had Elliott Smith.įor some Portlanders, Smith's name might recall a simple, beautiful song from a sentimental film some years back. New York had Lou Reed in the 1960s, Detroit had Iggy Pop in the early 1970s, Seattle had Kurt Cobain in the early 1990s. An artist who, for a brief time, embodies the unique urban history of a place, while adding chapters to that history.
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