Chris Whitley

All Music Guide:

Chris Whitley was a Texas-based singer/songwriter who initially began his career as a bluesy roots rocker, but as his career progressed, he moved deeper into rock & roll and alternative rock. Though Whitley's albums usually received positive reviews, they rarely sold, and his tendency to rework his sound prevented him from developing a sizable cult following among singer/songwriter fans.

As a child, Whitley moved frequently through the Southeast, eventually moving with his mother to Mexico when his parents divorced when he was 11; they later settled in a log cabin in Vermont. At the age of 15, he began playing guitar, inspired by Creedence Clearwater Revival, Johnny Winter, and Jimi Hendrix, eventually learning how to play slide guitar. He quit high school a year before graduation, moving to New York City, where he busked on the streets. One of his performances was witnessed by a listener who ran a travel agency, and decided that Whitley would be a success in Belgium and offered to send him to Europe. With nothing to lose, Whitley accepted the offer.

Once in Belgium, Whitley recorded a series of albums that flip-flopped between blues, rock, and funk. The records made him a minor success in Belgium, but he decided to return to New York anyway in 1990. He happened to meet producer Daniel Lanois later that year. Impressed by Whitley's songs, Lanois helped set up a deal with Columbia Records for the songwriter, and hosted his first album at a 19th century mansion in New Orleans (although it was Lanois' associate, Malcolm Burn, who produced the album). Released in the spring of 1991, Whitley's U.S. debut, Living with the Law, was an atmospheric set of blues and folk-rock that received glowing reviews and earned him a slot opening for Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers.

Though Living with the Law seemed to position Whitley for a breakthrough into a cult audience, he waited four years to deliver his second record, Din of Ecstasy. An attempt to connect with the hard-edged mainstream alternative rock audience that developed in the years following the release of Living with the Law, the grunge-flavored Din of Ecstasy -- which was released on Columbia's recently developed "alternative" subsidiary, WORK -- received mixed reviews and alienated his roots rock audience without winning him new fans. Two years later, Whitley released Terra Incognita, which combined elements of his first two records.

Dirt Floor followed on the Messenger label in 1998, restoring Whitley to a level of critical acclaim that rivaled his early work. Live at Martyrs' followed in the spring of 2000, and just a few months later, the spare studio effort Perfect Day appeared on the Valley imprint. Rocket House (2001) expanded on more soulful grooves and boasted eclectic collaborations with Bruce Hornsby, Blondie Chaplin, and Dave Matthews. It was also his first for Matthews' own imprint, ATO Records. A year later, Long Way Around: An Anthology 1991-2001 compiled his years at Columbia.

The stark, naked, and compelling Hotel Vast Horizon appeared in 2003 and was followed by two mail-order-only albums, Weed and War Crime Blues. The two casual albums were interim offerings between Hotel Vast Horizon and his next studio outing, 2005's Soft Dangerous Shores. Whitley toured for much of 2005, but by mid-October, he was forced to cancel his remaining dates due to complications from lung cancer. He died in his home on November 20, 2005. Whitley's final album, Dislocation Blues, a collaboration with Aussie blues guitarist Jeff Lang, was released in 2007. On Air, a 2003 solo concert featuring just Whitley and his guitar, appeared in 2008.

Wikipedia:

Christopher Becker Whitley (August 31, 1960 – November 20, 2005) was an American blues/rock singer-songwriter and guitarist.Cite error: There are <ref> tags on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist}} template (see the help page).

Early life[edit]

Whitley was born in Houston, Texas and learned to play guitar when he was fifteen. His father was an art director and his mother was a sculptor. During his youth he lived in Dallas, Texas, Oklahoma, Connecticut, Mexico and Vermont. His parents "grew up on race radio in the South" and their musical tastes—including Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Bob Dylan and Jimi Hendrix—influenced Whitley.Cite error: There are <ref> tags on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist}} template (see the help page).

Career[edit]

During the early 1980s Whitley was busking on the streets of New York City and collaborating with musicians Marc Miller, Arto Lindsay and Michael Beinhorn. He was given a plane ticket to Ghent, Belgium in 1983, and lived there for four years, recording several albums and playing with the bands Kuruki, 2 Belgen, Nacht Und Nebel, Alan Fawn, and A Noh Rodeo.

In 1988, producer Daniel Lanois heard Whitley perform at the Mondo Cane club in New York City and he helped Whitley obtain a recording contract with Columbia Records. In 1991 two of Whitley's songs charted on the Billboard Mainstream Rock charts: "Big Sky Country" (#36) and "Living with the Law" (#28).

In 2000, Whitley recorded his album Perfect Day, an album of covers, with Chris Wood and Billy Martin—both from the jazz trio Medeski, Martin, and Wood—as his backing band. His follow-up album Rocket House (2001) featured guest appearances by Dave Matthews, DJ Logic, and Bruce Hornsby.

In early 2004, Whitley's song "Breaking Your Fall" from Hotel Vast Horizon (2003) won an Independent Music Awards for Best Folk/Singer-Songwriter Song. He won again the following year in The 4th Annual Independent Music Awards for Best Blues/R&B Song for "Her Furious Angels" from War Crime Blues (2004). Whitley was also an inaugural member of The Independent Music Awards' judging panel to support independent artists. Whitley recorded a collaborative project with Jeff Lang in April 2005 called Dislocation Blues.

He performed as a featured guest on albums for many musicians including Shawn Colvin, Cassandra Wilson, Rob Wasserman, Johnny Society, Joe Henry, Michael Shrieve, Chocolate Genius, Ely Guerra, Goat, Dave Pirner, Clint Mansell, DJ Logic, Little Jimmy Scott, Mike Watt and Daniel Lanois.

Whitley appeared in the concert film documentary Hellhounds on my Trail - The Afterlife of Robert Johnson, performing Johnson's "Hellhound on My Trail" solo and "Walkin' Blues".

Style and influences[edit]

Whitley's style was rooted primarily in the blues but drew on an array of influences. In 2001, the New York Times described his act as "restless, moving into noise-rock and minimalist jazz evoking Chet Baker and Sonic Youth as much as Robert Johnson". Whitley himself refused to be classified in one genre as an artist, and dodged radio-friendly pop songs, insisting that he could never sincerely create and perform them. Whitley played a brand of confessional acoustic and electric blues, mixed with rock. His lyrics often contained overt sexual and religious references and sometimes bordered on the surreal.

He was fond of playing songs by Robert Johnson and Bob Dylan as well as Lou Reed, James Brown, J.J. Cale, The Clash, Nat King Cole, The Doors, Willie Dixon, The Flaming Lips, Jimi Hendrix, Howlin' Wolf, The Jesus and Mary Chain, Kraftwerk, Gary Numan, The Passions, Prince, The Stooges, and Sonny Boy Williamson II.

Reception[edit]

According to musician Dave Matthews: "I feel more passion for his music than I do for my own. I have a fervent, religious devotion to the magic that Chris Whitley makes" and Robert Lockwood, Jr. commented "[That] boy...plays like three men."

A music reviewer at the Detroit Free Press said: "The notable constant has been the quality of craftmanship, and the consistent question of how Whitley's combination of super songs, muscular-but-poetic lyrics, athletic voice and rock-god guitar work hasn't earned him a wider audience" while a writer at Rolling Stone magazine said: "The post-Hendrix explosion of whammybar wankers hasn't produced a single axeman who can compare to Chris Whitley. His eerie, bluesy voice and American gothic tunes frequently draw attention from the fact that he picks like a pissed off Doc Watson jacked through a Marshall stack".

Bruce Springsteen, Bruce Hornsby, Tom Petty, Jacob Golden, Myles Kennedy, Don Henley, Iggy Pop, Alanis Morissette, Sandi Thom, John Mayer, Gavin DeGraw, Joey DeGraw, Roland Chadwick and Keith Richards all count themselves admirers of Whitley's music.Cite error: There are <ref> tags on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist}} template (see the help page).

Death[edit]

In fall 2005, Whitley canceled his tour due to health issues. His brother, Dan Whitley, commented on November 11, 2005 that Chris was "in a comfortable warm home with hospice care at his disposal". Later that week it was revealed that Whitley was terminally ill with lung cancer. He died on November 20, 2005 in Houston, Texas at the age of 45.

Whitley's death received coverage in Time, the New York Times, National Public Radio and a mention at the 2006 Grammy Awards. After his death, the musician John Mayer said, "[When] Chris Whitley died...with him went a big part of modern American blues music. There aren't many fighters for the cause, and Chris never gave up on his mission. His somewhat prostrated place in pop culture earned him a sidebar of an obituary, but to those who knew his work, it registers as one of the most underappreciated losses in all of music."Cite error: There are <ref> tags on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist}} template (see the help page).

Personal life[edit]

Whitley is survived by his brother Dan and his daughter Trixie Whitley, a Brooklyn-based musician.Cite error: There are <ref> tags on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist}} template (see the help page).

Equipment[edit]

Whitley used various alternate tunings and often played slide guitar on a National resonator guitar and other musical equipment such as:

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