Handsome and the Humbles Live at the Bijou: Feels Like Home
If you’re of a certain age (say, 55), you’ll remember when local radio stations (which were, once upon a time, locally owned) ingratiated themselves into the community. They supported local causes, sponsored Little League teams, and featured hometown musicians, giving them a hand on their way up the ladder. With broadcast homogenization and the current state of the FCC (read: corporate doormat), the task of boosting local musicians has largely fallen to the few independent stations left. WDVX in Knoxville sponsors a series of live events featuring East Tennessee musicians, and this week, we all get the benefit of that. Handsome and the Humbles was featured last year as part of the station’s Live at the Bijou series, which also served as an introduction to the band’s then new album, Draw Some Blood. The band is releasing the recording of that show – It’s a loose, shaggy, raucous affair that reminds us what “live and local” used to mean.
The set begins with one of the band’s new songs, the chugging “Bonneville,” an ode to an ancient vehicle and the memories that it, well, almost brings back – “And I can still smell that smell/But I can’t recall the way it all felt” – capped off by a jagged guitar solo. From there, singer-songwriter Josh Smith and his Humbles make their way through a good chuck of their back catalog, including uptempo jangler “Down to the Wire” and the guitar extravaganza “Glad to Know You,” before arriving at one of my favorite songs of 2025, “St. Therese.” The first single from Draw Some Blood is a sad-but-driven life recalibration – “I thought of all that would never be/All the places that I’d never see/They felt like home.”
Smith enjoys the interactions with a dialed-in crowd, dedicating “Have Mercy” to Uncle Jesse on “Full House” and declaring that he wrote the bluesy “Drunk and Angry” “before I got arrested, but it pretty much holds up.” But his sincerity comes through on a twangy, pensive cover of Tyler Huff’s “Westward I Go Free,” as well as naming the Bijou Theatre as a “bucket list place to play” before crashing into the show’s final song, “Knoxville Lights,” a tribute to small cities and the good people who populate them. Knoxville may be a college town, but it’s also a music town, and both Handsome and the Humbles and WDVX are doing their damndest to make sure that doesn’t change.
Bonus – All proceeds from Bandcamp purchases of Live at the Bijou: Feels Like Home will go to WDVX, and if you’re in Knoxville, the band will be performing a free WDVX First Friday Live show on September 4, with merch sales benefitting WDVX.
https://www.bandsintown.com/e/108800102
Live at the Bijou: Feels Like Home was mixed by Josh Hutson and mastered by Josh Smith (theatre mix by Phil Crawford, radio mix by Justin Hembree). Songs written by Joshua Mikhael Smith (“Westward I Go Free” written by Tyler Huff). Handsome and the Humbles is Josh Smith (vocals, rhythm guitar), Jason Chambers (backing vocals, rhythm guitar, lead guitar), Josh Hutson (backing vocals, rhythm guitar, lead guitar) and Lauryl Brisson (drums).
Go here to order/stream Live at the Bijou: Feels Like Home (out September 4):
https://handsomeandthehumbles.bandcamp.com/
Check out tour dates here: https://www.handsomeandthehumbles.com/schedule
Enjoy some of our previous coverage here: REVIEW: Handsome and the Humbles “Draw Some Blood”