one of the greats has passed on

...and I didn't even find out about it until over a month after it happened.

Chris Whitley was a great singer/songwriter in the vein of delta blues, National steel guitar, New Orleans tradition. His 1991 debut album, Living With The Law, is still, in my opinion, one of the greatest albums of the last quarter of the 20th century, and definitely way, way up there on my list. He died on November 20th at the age for 45. [an Amazon reader concurs: "Whitley's Living with the Law remains one of my top 10 albums of all time."]



A sensational lowish voice, great guitar skills, and honest yet poetic lyrics, Chris Whitley was phenomenal. Please, PLEASE go listen to samples from Living With The Law at amazon to see what I mean. A real marriage of southern landscaping and a more mainstream arrangement and production scheme [cut and paste]:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0000027FZ/qid=1135328776/sr=8-2/ref=pd_bbs_2/104-8985750-8835146?v=glance&s=music&n=507846

I was just reading a post on Chocolate Genius's website [I know, weird stage name...his real name is Marc Anthony Thompson] about how he and his band opened for Chris on tour:

"In San Francisco at the Great American Music Hall, Chris began in earnest to kick our 5 piece ass with just his National and a piece of electric wood. "

Thompson didn't even use his last name. It took me all of a few seconds to know who he was talking about, and I laughed to myself in a playfully sly way, knowing full well how wonderful Chris Whitley is. It wasn't until I decided to check his webpage that I learned the 'is' is now a 'was'.

Here's more from Thompson:

"Night after night I get to watch his show and it's . . . . awe inspiring, humbling... Some nights, it makes me wonder what I'm doing out here at all."

Discovering Chris Whitley as I'd just turned thirteen was one of those seminal moments of my youth. I actually had a lot of them and they were usually music-related. I wasn't buying CDs yet, so I had audio cassettes all over the place. I'm pretty sure "Living With The Law" is one of the albums I wore out and had to replace.



I would have loved to have met him.

Thank you, Chris.

Here's what Dave Matthews had to say about him in 2001:

"Chris is an example of one of those things that appalls me about the record industry - That is, how could a talent like his go relatively unnoticed? So few singers have their own personality, and Chris is his own man to the bone. Honestly, I feel more passion for his music than I do for my own. My music I'm critical of. But I have a fervent, religious devotion to the magic that Chris makes."

Listen to a great NPR story from August about his most recent CD:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4796460