Smiths Project: Janice Whaley sings entire catalog

Fans of the long-defunct British band the Smiths are an extraordinarily dedicated bunch. They bear large-scale tattoos of group leader Morrissey on their backs, attend annual conventions featuring look-alike tribute acts and, in Brooklyn, there's even a Smiths-themed speed-dating event called - what else? - Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now.

But last year Janice Whaley took her adulation for the band to another level. The 35-year-old single mom spent countless hours in a closet-size space in her San Jose home recording every single song the Smiths released during their lucrative run between 1984 and 1987, using nothing but her own voice. She posted the results of her experiment every week on her blog, the Smiths Project (thesmithsproject.blogspot.com).

Between tending to a full-time job and her 4-year-old son within the 52-week deadline, she managed to make it through 71 songs in the band's official catalog, refashioning them dramatically by layering her alternately earthy and ethereal vocals between 30 to 50 times for each track.

She doesn't just sing Morrissey's words in majestic songs like "I Know It's Over" and "How Soon Is Now" but re-creates Johnny Marr's shimmering guitar effects, the timeless bass and drums - all without digital effects - plus the overwhelming sense of optimism and dread that consumes the music.

The motivation for doing it was simple, she says. Whaley had always wanted to be a singer and musician, even pursuing an electronic music degree from San Francisco State University. But she had always put it off. Then two of her closest friends died in the span of just five weeks.

"It hit me that life is so short, and if you're going to do something, you have to do it now," Whaley says. "More importantly, what do you leave behind after you go? I want to leave music behind, not the regret of not having done it."

Born and raised in rural Joshua Tree (San Bernardino County), where her father was a Baptist minister, Whaley recalls growing up in church, listening to hymns and choirs, and coming home to immerse herself in the piano.

"My parents' house is on the only paved road on our side of town," Whaley says. "The front yard overlooks 5 miles of desert. It wasn't the typical high school environment. Everyone lived so far apart. That's why I developed such a love of music. There weren't any distractions."

She was a member of her school's marching, symphonic and jazz bands, making long pilgrimages into Los Angeles to catch live performances by the likes of Miles Davis and Ella Fitzgerald in their twilight years.

Misfit status

Even though the Smiths songs of coming of age in the gray, industrial town of Manchester, England, seem so far removed from her personal surroundings, Whaley found an inherent connection to Morrissey's romanticized songs of loneliness and his perpetual misfit status.

At 14, she was diagnosed with polymyositis, a rare inflammatory disease that made her muscles so weak she wasn't able to walk for several years. "I did a lot of sitting and spending time in my head," she says. "And the Smiths were what I was listening to back then. I felt like no one else could understand."

Some later influences came in while Whaley was working on the Smiths Project, including the avant-garde composers John Zorn and John Cage, as well as the Icelandic singer Björk, whose 2004 "Medúlla" album was similarly crafted out of an orchestra of human voices.

At the end of the year, Whaley placed a button on her website to raise $3,500 to fund a physical six-CD boxed set of the finished work. She reached her goal within the first week, and as the pledges continue to roll in, she's planning on putting together an even more elaborate package to be released in March. In the meantime, the songs and collected albums are available as MP3 downloads.

She hasn't heard from anyone in the typically contentious Smiths camp since she completed the work on Dec. 31, but she has received the endorsement of Simon Goddard, author of "The Smiths: The Songs That Saved Your Life," and Morrissey sideman Boz Boorer.

"I figure if they didn't like it, they would have said something by now," she says. "So I think that's a good thing."

There have also been several glowing write-ups of the project in the European press. The day a major piece in the Guardian newspaper in the United Kingdom came out, she was laid off from her day job.

Reaffirmation

Whaley is hoping the time off from regular employment offers her the opportunity to pursue music full scale. She's in the midst of recording several tracks with Tears for Fears singer Curt Smith (no relation to the Smiths, naturally) for his new solo project. She also plans to work on a set of her own songs, preschool schedule allowing, for release in May.

Everything that has come her way as a result of the Smiths Project reaffirms the original spark for the whole thing.

"You never know where anything is going to take you day to day," Whaley says. "I'm hoping in the next four months something magic will happen." {sbox}

To hear Janice Whaley's songs from the Smiths Project, go to thesmithsproject.blogspot.com.

Follow Aidin Vaziri at twitter.com/MusicSF. E-mail him at avaziri@sfchronicle.com.

This article appeared on page Q - 32 of the San Francisco Chronicle