| Little Victories | |
| Type: | studio |
| Artist: | Darden Smith |
| Cover: | Little Victories (Darden Smith album).jpg |
| Released: | 1993 |
| Label: | Columbia |
| Producer: | Richard Gottehrer |
| Prev Title: | Trouble No More |
| Prev Year: | 1990 |
| Next Title: | Deep Fantastic Blue |
| Next Year: | 1996 |
Little Victories is an album by the American musician Darden Smith, released in 1993.[1] [2] He supported the album by touring with Shawn Colvin.[3] The title track was released as a single, marketed to adult contemporary radio.[4] Little Victories was Smith's final album for Columbia Records.[5]
Recorded in New York City, the album was produced primarily by Richard Gottehrer.[6] [7] Smith's goal was to make a record that would receive radio play.[6] He cowrote some of its songs with Boo Hewerdine; Smith considered most of the songs to be autobiographical.[8] [9] Rosanne Cash duetted with Smith on "Precious Time".[7] Smith wrote "Place in the Sun" after reading Woody Guthrie's Bound for Glory.[10] "Levee Song" was cowritten by Chip Taylor.[11]
The Toronto Star praised Smith's "superbly crafted lyrics."[12] The Chicago Tribune wrote that "Smith mixes folk, country and panhandle blues in his musical portraits of real people in the real world."[13] The Vancouver Sun opined that "Little Victories puts Smith in a bit more of a cosmopolitan realm than his pop-country past, and it's pretty darn listenable."[14]
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch noted the "great playing and solid songwriting." The Daily Breeze deemed Smith "one of postmodern country's many unsung songwriters," labeling Little Victories "insightful thought-folk."[15] The Rocky Mountain News admired the "easygoing vocal style, consistent songwriting and a world-wise lyrical point of view."[16]
AllMusic wrote that the album "stands among Smith's most mature and ambitious work."