At one point, in the middle of a rainy night, you could have found him up the mast of a 19th-century schooner wrestling a flogging sail off the coast of Nova Scotia. At another point, two miles above the sea, you could have found him in a blizzard behind the wheel of a road plow clearing mountain roads. And then, walking along a forest path, you could look up into a tree and see Russick Smith, lit by a ray of light, playing his cello. He is a man unbound by convention on a mission to fight cynicism with wonder.

The only child of a wildland firefighter and a psychiatric nurse, Smith was raised rambling through natural environments of the western US in the bed of a pickup truck. After seeing a cello in his elementary school cafeteria, he began playing music at age nine. By high school, he wanted to step away from the cello in favor of the electric bass; the allure of high-energy heavy metal outweighing the nuanced refinement of the traditional cello repertoire. But four years after that, he found himself more enthralled with the technical prowess of the jazz greats.

After attending school for audio engineering at the Conservatory of Recording Arts and Sciences, Smith went on to work as an Assistant Engineer in the Woodstock, NY area. There he worked on records with artists such as The Black Crowes, Peter Murphy, and Levon Helm. While at Helm’s home, he assisted on “Electric Dirt,” which won the first-ever Grammy award for Best Americana Album. However, despite achieving some professional aspirations in that environment, it left him emotionally isolated. His restlessness led him out of music to pursue a myriad of avenues in search of a tenable life balance, with his instruments an ever-present shadow. He worked aboard traditionally rigged sailing ships Mystic Whaler and the Pride of Baltimore II, cello jammed beneath a fo’c’sle bunk or mandolin swinging above his bed in stormy seas. He worked as a snowboard instructor, his upright bass tucked in the corner of his basement apartment. He was a night-shift plow diver, recording new compositions as a way to give variation to six months of winter routine. A baker, a photographer, a lawn mower, a bus driver, the man emptying a trash can on the corner of the street; at some point you may have seen him…

It was on that foundation that Smith’s musical voice was forged; an identity formed between rolling seas and rolling hills, heavy weather and heavy machines, between a relentless imagination and a doubtful heart. And today he is lauded by his community. Colorado governor Jared Polis called him “uniquely Colorado,” Yo-yo Ma called his playing at a 2018 performance “gorgeous,” and music fans took notice when a news story about his arboreal performances was syndicated across the country. Even so, you still might not have seen him…but maybe walking that sunny forest path, exploring a desert canyon, or sitting in a concert hall someday, at some point, you will.