Mention the name Chris Lambert, and most locals think about his ground-breaking podcast that played a major role in recently bringing justice to the family of missing Cal Poly student Kristin Smart.
The Santa Maria native, admittedly shy and private, remains appreciative of all the support and attention his podcast generated. However, Lambert wants to remind people that first and foremost, he’s a singer-songwriter who finally has the time to go back to his music.
The result is a brand new collection of tunes, Be Great, and an upcoming free concert to officially introduce his music.
The new material is part of a triptych of albums that started with 2016’s The Blue Hour and The Constant Education of Christopher Lambert that followed in 2018.
But the one-two punch of COVID and the demands of the Smart case resulted in Lambert spending six years before finally finishing the final piece of the musical puzzle, officially released on November 15, in his Orcutt home studio.
“When I realized that I was building a trilogy, I started thinking about the future, and how to write about it,” Lambert says. “What pops into my mind when I think about the future? For me, it’s a lot of anxiety, fear, and uncertainty, and anticipating where it will lead.”
Be Great tackles wide-ranging and personal topics for Lambert, including panic attacks, buying his first home, the prospects of an afterlife, and maintaining a 15-year relationship with his partner Ali and the pressure of being the partner he thinks she deserves.
Lambert turned to songwriting in the early 2000s, crafting songs he calls “impossibly sad, yet maddeningly optimistic.” He wrote, produced, and released 11 separate albums, but remained largely under the radar in terms of building any real following.
Then, in 2019, Lambert began producing the podcast Your Own Backyard, devoted to trying to figure out what happened to Kristin Smart, who disappeared from Cal Poly in May 1996. The guy accustomed to small coffee house audiences suddenly found himself in the national, eventually international, spotlight, as crime devotees flocked to every new episode.
Lambert remains grateful for the impact his podcast had in helping to break the case, but music lovers shouldn’t buy Be Great hoping to hear references to Kristin Smart. He doesn’t rule out visiting that subject musically “down the road,” but Lambert’s in no hurry—the song, the moment, would have to be just right.
Fans of soundscape artists like Brian Enos will likely find themselves listening to the new music repeatedly, just to figure out all the instruments and “effects” Lambert uses to layer his music.
The list includes a Casio digital guitar (“an 80s experiment that never really took off”), a Mellotron (“popularized by the Beatles”), a Chinese erhu (“a two-stringed instrument played like a violin”), and a SOMA Pipe (“a synthesizer that you blow or hum into”).
Astute listeners may also pick up the sounds of a telephone answering machine, metal fruit bowl, clothes dryer, hardwood floors, and even a swarm of bees that once infested the Lambert home.
“I played our house like an instrument throughout the album,” Lambert says.
Folks can now hear for themselves. Lambert is scheduled to perform a free show at Humdinger Brewing in San Luis Obispo on Saturday, November 23 at 7 p.m. Local musician Noah Colton is the opening act.