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Avg: 4.0 (74 ratings)
- Date Released: March 17, 1998
- Genre: Rock/Pop
- Style: Americana, Contemporary Blues, Singer-Songwriter
- Label: Messenger Records
A powerful work from a departed master
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We Say...
Dirt Floor is a miniature masterpiece, a 28-minute solo acoustic record, elegiac and tender, painfully intimate and laced with dark intimations of death — almost a '90s response to Nick Drake's Pink Moon (which, coincidentally or not, also clocks in at 28 minutes). On Dirt Floor, much of the aggressiveness of Whitley's past work (as well as many of the default blues clichés that have so frequently led the essentially uncategorizable Whitley to be mischaracterized as a modern bluesman) has been stripped away to reveal more clearly than ever before the emotional core of his music: open-hearted kindness coupled with an unconquerable loneliness, a semi-autistic inability to connect with other people. Dirt Floor was recorded in one day, live to a single microphone in a shed in Vermont, and front and center is Whitley's haunted, hollow voice, which floats like Hendrix, stings like Dylan. It's also a perfect chance to revel in the complexities of Whitley's singular guitar playing, a bastardized style that combines frenetic slide playing with a clawhammer-like right hand technique, and which often (especially live) can be so ferocious that it's easy to miss the virtuousity of it — the subtlety of the inner voicings, the tenacious, ragged bite of those hopelessly bent notes.
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They Say...
This is the most consistent and accessible disc of Chris Whitley's off-and-on recording career. The album is just Whitley singing and accompanying himself on banjo, guitar and foot stomp. It has a simple and wonderfully stripped-down sound that fits perfectly with the morose yet tumultuous mood of the songs, establishing a strong atmosphere that is almost as important to the work as the mood in a '40s film noir. This is an exceedingly short work, only 27+ minutes, yet it really shouldn't be much longer. If you were expecting Big Sky Country in sound, you will be both happy and disappointed: happy because there is the same stripped-down, nasal singing and story-songs, and disappointed because there is not as much dobro, nor a band helping him flesh out the tunes. He does an excellent job on the small amount of material here, yet it does not develop into anything due to the lack of time; at the same time, the tone is so very angst-ridden that the short length may work in its favor. There are no liner notes or comments for this disc. What is here is excellent in its own right and stands up as some of his best work; I just wonder if maybe another song or two might have made it a stronger work.
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| 01. |  |
Scrapyard Lullaby |
3:43 |
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| 02. | |
Indian Summer |
3:39 |
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| 03. | |
Accordingly |
3:27 |
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| 04. | |
Wild Country |
3:08 |
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| 05. | |
Ballpeen Hammer |
2:38 |
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| 06. | |
From One Island To Another |
2:17 |
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| 07. | |
Altitude |
2:51 |
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| 08. | |
Dirt Floor |
2:12 |
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| 09. | |
Loco Girl |
3:11 |
|
09 Total Tracks, 27:06 Total Length
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Credits
- Chris Whitley - Banjo // Chris Whitley - Banjo // Chris Whitley - Vocals // Chris Whitley - Vocals // Chris Whitley - Main Performer // Chris Whitley - Main Performer // Chris Whitley - Foot Stomping // Chris Whitley - Foot Stomping // Greg Calbi - Mastering // Craig Street - Producer // Danny Kadar - Engineer // Laura Wiley - Artwork // Laura Wiley - Design // Chris Nofziger - Photography
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