The World of Wilco
It’s a tribute to leader Jeff Tweedy’s enduring commitment to artistic rebirth and reinvention that one could listen to Wilco’s 1995 debut A.M. and its Grammy-winning 2004 album A Ghost Is Born back to back and have no idea the two records came from the same band. From garage-steeped post-punk to acoustic trad-country to blissful power-pop to decaying industrial soundscapes, Tweedy has covered a vast amount of ground in his 20-plus years as a recording artist. His first band, Uncle Tupelo, became a torchlight for a new generation of roots-leaning rock acts, with the title of their first record eventually serving as an informal nickname for the entire subgenre of alternative-country. Tweedy’s subsequent venture, Wilco, battled through early stereotypes, inner turmoil and music-biz tribulations to emerge, against all odds, as one of the standard-bearers of indie rock, achieving that rare combination of artistic integrity and commercial vitality. Wilco today seems less of a Jeff Tweedy vehicle and more of a gathering-point where a handful of dedicated musicians convene and create – never quite knowing what might surface next.
Wilco, Etc., In Chronological Order
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In retrospect, it seems unlikely that so many musical stories would be launched by this unassuming if impressive 1990 debut by a Midwestern trio of friends in their early 20s. Uncle Tupelo was, at its heart, an underground rock band, born of the same MTV-averse community that gave rise to such 1980s club-circuit champions as Dinosaur Jr. and Soul Asylum. The hard-hitting tracks "Graveyard Shift," "Before I Break" and "Factory Belt" settled... comfortably into the post-punk-dominated playlists of that era's college radio landscape; still, there was something else going on here. The title track was a cover of a song popularized by country music forebears the Carter Family in the 1930s, and the album's most dramatic moments came from songs with acoustic backbones: "Whiskey Bottle," a pedal-steel-driven dive into the bottom of the glass, and "Life Worth Livin'," a soul-searching declaration for the down and out. Uncle Tupelo at this stage seemed primarily to be guitarist Jay Farrar's band; the handful of contributions from bassist Jeff Tweedy ("That Year," "Train," "Flatness," "Screen Door") carried their weight but didn't necessarily suggest a future star in the making. One might have guessed, in 1990, that these guys would fade away as innocently as they rose. History had other ideas.
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If Uncle Tupelo's 1990 debut No Depression had suggested Jay Farrar was the band's focal point, the first track on the band's 1991 follow-up served notice of Jeff Tweedy's arrival. The raw emotion of Tweedy's "Gun" catches fire amid Uncle Tupelo's power-trio abandon, creating his first great moment on record; indeed, the song has remained a fan favorite throughout his subsequent Wilco years. Tweedy's sweeter side shines on the album's bookend, "If... That's Alright," a quiet number with atmospheric keyboard washes that hint at some of his future explorations. In between, Farrar serves up a few more gems that have stood the test of time, including the aching acoustic ballad "Still Be Around" and "True To Life," a country-ish rambler which signaled where the band's next two albums would venture. Along the way, they paid tribute to punk rock mentors the Minutemen with "D. Boon," and on "Looking For A Way Out," their voices united in anthemic glory: "There was a time — that time is gone." Taken as a whole, Still Feel Gone was slightly more hit-and-miss than No Depression, but its high points made clear that Tweedy and Farrar were destined to leave an indelible mark on American music.
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Most great artists in contemporary popular music have taken a sharp turn against the grain at some point, showing themselves to possess a range and depth which allows them to escape shorthand categorization. Here is where Uncle Tupelo made their move: As modern-rock radio was breaking toward the jet-engine sounds of Seattle, the trio retreated to a Georgia studio armed with acoustic instruments for a weeklong session with R.E.M. guitarist Peter Buck... at the helm. The result was a strikingly understated album that looked backward as much as forward; nearly half its tracks were taken from traditional songbooks dating to the early 20th century. They touch on deep, dark themes with "Coalminers" and "Satan, Your Kingdom Must Come Down," though their voices harmonize with gospel-style inspiration on the Louvin Brothers' pointedly ironic "Atomic Power." Of the originals, Jay Farrar's leadoff track "Grindstone" — which might have sounded at home on the band's first two records with an electric arrangement — is the standout, though Jeff Tweedy's hushed, haunting "Fatal Wound," fleshed out with subtle string touches, marked a sign of growth for him as a songwriter. A minor revelation is the hypnotic instrumental "Sandusky," with their good friend Brian Henneman of the Bottle Rockets on mandolin.
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On March 16-20, 1992, Uncle Tupelo had found a way out of the post-punk trappings of their origins. Acoustic guitars and traditional music had provided a back door into an entirely different world, and if stepping through that door meant turning their back on alt-rock just as Nirvana et al. had opened the floodgates, the artistic epiphany that bloomed on Anodyne was well worth the road-less-traveled journey. Gone was the power-trio format;... both Jay Farrar and Jeff Tweedy were on guitar now, with bassist recruit John Stirratt joined by new drummer Ken Coomer and multi-instrumentalist Max Johnston, whose fiddle touches on the gorgeous opener "Slate" announced that a new day was rising for the band. Tweedy's "Acuff-Rose," a tribute to the legendary Nashville publishing team, sketched out the bridge Uncle Tupelo was building to the past; a cover of Doug Sahm's "Give Back The Key To My Heart," with Sahm himself chiming in on the second verse, set that bridge in stone. By the time they hit Farrar's blazing Civil War metaphor "Chickamauga," it was clear they'd made one of the decade's great albums. There's a bit of retrospective irony in the bitter "We've Been Had," when Tweedy declares with a sneer, "Every star that hides on the back of the bus/ Is just waiting for his cover to be blown." Soon enough, he'd face that fame-bound reality firsthand.
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The call Jeff Tweedy received from a handful of Minneapolis pals in 1994, shortly after Tweedy's band Uncle Tupelo had splintered, was a godsend. In the midst of picking up the pieces and putting together Wilco, Tweedy had the pleasure of convening in the studio with the Jayhawks' Gary Louris, Soul Asylum's Dan Murphy and others to record the full-length debut of Golden Smog, a self-described "stuporgroup" that had recorded a modest... EP of covers a few years earlier. The focus this time around was on originals: Louris and his Jayhawks cohort Mark Olson served up the exquisite pop gem "Won't Be Coming Home" (which hinted at the direction Louris would steer the Jayhawks in the near future), while Tweedy contributed the whimsical sing-along "Pecan Pie." Kraig Johnson of Run Westy Run had a primary role, writing three originals and collaborating with Louris on the leadoff track, "V," an instantly catchy tune highlighted by vocal harmonies and piano melodies. Fittingly enough, given the band's origins, the highlight was once again a cover: Tweedy and Louris proved to be quite charismatic duet partners on Ronnie Lane's classic Faces ballad "Glad And Sorry." In the end, Down By The Old Mainstream was just a minor diversion for these artists, but it remains a welcome and lovable tributary.
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Jay Farrar's decision to leave Uncle Tupelo in 1994 thrust Jeff Tweedy into a new role, though it helped that the rest of the band chose to stick with him under the rechristened name Wilco. That their debut was a relatively safe and modest affair was understandable; Tweedy was ambitious, yes, but the new band had to learn how to walk before they could run. On the one hand, A.M. is noticeably... different from Uncle Tupelo's records; the loss of Farrar's writing and vocal presence is keen. But the camaraderie evident among the returning players (plus longtime friend Brian Henneman of the Bottle Rockets guesting on lead guitar) lends the album an easygoing charm akin to early-'70s SoCal country rock. There are curveballs here and there a Stonesy kick on "Casino Queen," quiet reflection on "Dash 7," a lead vocal and songwriting turn for bassist John Stirratt on "It's Just That Simple" but mostly the band keeps an even keel, finding comfort in simple rootsy pleasures. The quirky "Passenger Side" seemed like a throwaway at first but has become a fan favorite over the years, while "I Must Be High" and "Box Full of Letters" provided early snapshots of the melodic pop brilliance that would radiate on the next couple of Wilco records.
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Given the long-term career trajectory of Jeff Tweedy's band Wilco after he and Jay Farrar laid to rest Uncle Tupelo in 1994, it's easy to forget that Farrar's band Son Volt was a much stronger horse out of the gate. On the heels of Wilco's enjoyable if unspectacular 1995 debut A.M. came Son Volt's Trace, a near-perfect collection of 10 originals and a Ron Wood cover that suggested Farrar was one of... the finest singer-songwriters of his generation. Son Volt's mode was an equal-parts balance of countrified acoustic ballads and fully-charged electric rockers, with Farrar's elusive, enchanting lyrics and rich, warm voice at the center. The album's opening track, "Windfall," sounds as if it has existed forever, a simple but beautiful ode to the road floating effortlessly on currents of pedal steel and fiddle: "Both feet on the floor, two hands on the wheel/ May the wind take your troubles away." When Farrar and the band — original Uncle Tupelo drummer Mike Heidorn plus brothers Jim and Dave Boquist — kick it into high gear, as on the catchy minor radio hit "Drown" and the urgent "Loose String," they're flawlessly in sync, as if they'd been playing together for years rather than months. "Too Early," a touching caution to legendary songwriter Townes Van Zandt, is followed by the Wood cover, "Mystifies Me" a free-and-easy finale to a record with a tight focus and zero filler.
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This 19-song double album is where Jeff Tweedy starts showing off. Why record the same song twice first as a straight-up rocker ("Outtasite (Outta Mind)"), then as a Pet Sounds pop fantasia ("Outta Mind (Outta Sight)") except to show how much you've expanded your range? Not only had Tweedy grown comfortable as a bandleader, but with the addition of multi-instrumentalist Jay Bennett, he had an actual band to lead a band equally... adept at feedback-strafed drone-pop ("Misunderstood") or bouncy bluegrass ("Forget the Flowers"), but feels most at home with the Stonesy swagger of songs like "Monday," powered by a full horn section. Still, Tweedy's heart belongs to the mid-life losers, whether the sad sack rocker stuck back in his hometown on "Misunderstood" or the sympathetic fan of "The Lonely 1." Nor does the band take the name of the Peter Sellers' flick in vain: Tweedy's narrators often sound like adrift nafs whose moments of wisdom are wholly accidental. And if that doesn't excuse occasional clunkers like "I guess all this history/ Is just a mystery/ To me" but suggests that "You've been taking me/ Way too seriously" may be a cute wink toward his more adoring fans. Keith Harris
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Having broken open the Wilco mold on 1996's Being There, Jeff Tweedy went all-in with the exuberant pop tendencies of his new compatriot Jay Bennett on Summerteeth. Perhaps because the band's 1998 collaboration with Billy Bragg on the Woody Guthrie project Mermaid Avenue had played up their roots-folk inclinations, they seemed eager to push in an entirely different direction on this 1999 disc, which largely closed the door on their alt-country/Uncle Tupelo... past. Fiddle and pedal steel are supplanted by keyboards and synthesizer; most of the tunes are Tweedy/Bennett co-writes, with bassist John Stirratt also having a hand in a few. Buoyant choruses abound, from "A Shot In The Arm" to "Nothing'severgonnastandinmyway" to "ELT." They pull out all the stops on "Pieholden Suite," a Jimmy Webb-esque tour de force complete with horns and synthesized strings. But the album's heart is "Via Chicago," an elusive, swirling odyssey of melody and noise that feeds off the creative energy of the band's adopted hometown. Not everything is so aggressively modern: "When You Wake Up Feeling Old" is a jaunty throwback that might have fit well musically on the Mermaid album, while the bonus track "Candyfloss" has a carnival-calliope charm. Viewed in context with Wilco's oeuvre, Summerteeth could be considered the band's Revolver: a pop-phase pinnacle, with a full-scale game-changer looming just over the horizon.
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The Wilco catalogue breaks down fairly cleanly into before-and-after Yankee Hotel Foxtrot segments. Such is the landmark nature of this album, which attained mythical status after it was initially rejected by the band's label; when it finally saw the light of day a year later, it vaulted to the upper reaches of the charts. The entire process was detailed in the documentary film I Am Trying To Break Your Heart, which is... also the title of the album's first track, a seven-minute testament to Wilco's decisive turn away from pop convention and toward art-rock experimentation. The making of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot was marked by turmoil — in addition to the label hassles, leader Jeff Tweedy and key bandmate Jay Bennett had a professional meltdown during the sessions (documented in the film), and longtime drummer Ken Coomer was replaced by Glenn Kotche, coveted by Tweedy for his unconventional approach to percussion. The result was an album with a lot more open space than its predecessor, the densely-arranged Summerteeth; the emphasis is less on melody and more on mood. The first few songs suggest a soundscape for a sci-fi film about a bleak futureworld; from that detritus blooms the delicate fiddle solo that frames "Jesus, Etc.," which can't help but bring to mind 9/11 when Tweedy sings, "Tall building shake/ Voices escape/ Singing sad, sad songs," even though the album was recorded a few months before the WTC attacks. That sorrowful sentiment carries over to the next track, "Ashes of American Flags," before Tweedy delivers the lighthearted and playful "Heavy Metal Drummer" as a sort of antidote to the proceedings. When Tweedy acknowledges on the album's serene, shimmering final track, "I've got reservations/ About so many things/ But not about you," it feels like a personal reckoning, and a way forward for both the art and the artist.
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Jeff Tweedy's longtime friendship with Scott McCaughey, ringleader of the R.E.M. side-project the Minus 5, led to McCaughey's recruitment of Wilco as the backing band for this 2003 disc. The ties run even deeper, actually; R.E.M. guitarist Peter Buck, McCaughey's primary Minus 5 collaborator, produced an album for Tweedy's former band, Uncle Tupelo, way back in 1992. Down With Wilco was a welcome low-key breather for Tweedy and company amid the pressures... of following up their 2001 breakthrough Yankee Hotel Foxtrot; a spirit of carefree solidarity shines through in the joyful bounce of "The Town That Lost Its Groove Supply" and the sardonically witty "I'm Not Bitter" (in which McCaughey answers the title declaration with the assurance, "Not at all...just a lot"). McCaughey's writing tends toward the '60s-pop classicism of the Kinks and the Zombies, and Wilco proves plenty able to relate on that level, while helping him to push the envelope on the sonically adventurous bookend tracks "The Days Of Wine And Booze" and "Dear Employer (The Reason I Quit)."
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Though Wilco bassist John Stirratt had a songwriting credit and lead vocal on the band's first album, subsequent releases proved the band would be Jeff Tweedy's vision, so Stirratt sought a side-project outlet for his own material. He teamed up with Mississippian Pat Sansone in the Autumn Defense, mining a vein not dissimilar to Wilco's but with a more intimate feel. Circles, their second album, is a wondrously low-key record; guitar strings... and pianos intertwine softly to create slightly jazz-inflected folk-pop landscapes colored by the sweet voices of Sansone and Stirratt. The empty-streets scene of the melancholy opening track, "Silence," is set at 2:45 a.m.; ringing stringed instruments ricochet against gentle strains of feedback, bringing the wee-hours vignette to life. Everything flows from that beginning; the mood is never broken through a series of mesmerizing numbers ranging from the ever-so-slightly uptempo dreamer "The World (Will Soon Turn Our Way)" to the lounge-flavored reverie "Tuesday Morning." They cast their spell so subtly but effectively that when they reach the title-track conclusion and its horn-accented echoing mantra — "All these thoughts that fill my head, begin to grow" — their music has indeed transcended from the head to the heart and soul.
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In the wake of their popular and artistic breakthrough on 2002's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, Wilco headed even further into uncharted territory on A Ghost Is Born, largely eschewing conventional songcraft in favor of conceptual expressionism. By this point, only leader Jeff Tweedy and bassist John Stirratt remained from the early days; the rest of the band consisted of drummer Glenn Kotche, multi-instrumentalist Leroy Bach and keyboardist Mikael Jorgenson, but an even larger... presence on A Ghost Is Born was experimental musician Jim O'Rourke, who co-produced the album with the band and steered the proceedings toward his free-noise background. At the extreme end of the spectrum are "Spiders (Kidsmoke)" and "Less Than You Think," which clock in at 10 and 15 minutes, respectively; the former is difficult to follow despite intriguing lyrics, while the latter devolves into an impenetrable barrage of synthesized squalls. Not everything is so far out: "I'm A Wheel" is two and a half minutes of tight, clean, straight-up rock 'n' roll, and the piano-based pop gem "Theologians" harks back to the band's Summerteeth heyday. If the result is an uneven collection, that didn't seem to matter to music industry voters who gave Wilco their first-ever Grammy, for Best Alternative Music Album.
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The audience for instrumental albums by drummers is inevitably a bit limited, even when that drummer plays with one of the world's most popular bands — Wilco, in Glenn Kotche's case. If you appreciate the innovative influence Kotche has had on Wilco's music over the past decade, or if you're simply inclined toward avant-garde sounds, his solo outings may well hold some intrigue. For starters, though Kotche's role in Wilco is percussion-centered,... there's a good deal more than percussion on Mobile. While everything is heavily dependent on rhythm, Kotche employs a range of melodic instruments to give voice to his visions on "Reductions or Imitations" and the three-tiered titular composition. And if it's nothing but thumping sounds you want, "Projections Of" serves up bangs and clangs and loops of beats woven together in a manner that stretches modern art well into a future realm. The album's centerpiece is "Monkey Chant," 11 minutes of tribal-meets-industrial conflagration guaranteed to freak out even the most ardent Wilco fan.
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That Wilco guitarist Nels Cline chose to spotlight the music of noted jazz pianist Andrew Hill on this collection seems fitting: Hill's push-and-pull between his grounding in traditional forms and his insistence in breaking out beyond them is a theme that's mirrored in Wilco's body of work. Cline assembled a sextet for this recording, with Bobby Bradford (cornet), Ben Goldberg (clarinet), Andrea Parkins (accordion), Devin Hoff (contrabass) and Scott Amendola (percussion) accompanying... his guitar excursions. (Cline's brother Alex also appears on two tracks.) Transcribing piano compositions for a piano-less ensemble is both the challenge and the reward in such an endeavor; the music can't help but be reinvented in the process. But that was inevitable simply from the free-jazz approach the musicians take here; this, too, is a nod to Hill, who favored open interpretations. Cline's material selections tended toward pieces he found suitable for arranging into extended suites; an amalgamation of "No Doubt," "11/8" and "Dance With Death" stretches beyond 20 minutes. As an instrumentalist, Cline frequently takes a backseat here; the horns and winds tend to jump out on much of the record. If there's less of a spotlight on Cline's own virtuosity, New Monastery is no less enlightening as a further glimpse in to how his creative impulses both mesh with and influence the Wilco framework.
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Where to go once you've gone off the deep end, and won a Grammy for it? For Wilco, the answer was a measured but brilliant retreat. Unlike its 2004 predecessor A Ghost Is Born, the band's 2007 album Sky Blue Sky contained no 10-to-15-minute tracks, no feedback indulgences, no high-minded concepts. Instead, there is beauty. Even the album's longest track, the six-minute "Impossible Germany," is gorgeous; its guitar sounds trade in the... previous album's Sonic Youth template for something closer to Steely Dan. Much of the shift is due to the continued evolution of the Wilco lineup: After the departure of Leroy Bach, leader Jeff Tweedy added guitarist Nels Cline and multi-instrumentalist Pat Sansone, the latter from bassist John Stirratt's folk-pop side-project the Autumn Defense. Sansone and Stirratt likely had something to do with the kinder, gentler sound of tracks such as the warm, welcoming opener "Either Way" and the contemplative "Leave Me." Cline, known for jazz-tinged excursions on his own albums and other projects, helps the band keep a sharp edge on several tunes, serving up skronky rhythmic fills on the disjointed "Shake It Off" and barbed leads on "Hate It Here." Tweedy, meanwhile, reaches a new level as a singer; his voice sounds more mellifluous and effortless than ever, especially on the album's breezy title track. Is this the sound of Wilco mellowing as they ease into middle age? If so, the musical result becomes them.
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After a decade of recording in either their home base of Chicago or the nexus of Manhattan, Wilco had earned a working vacation, and so the excitingly titled Wilco (The Album) was recorded halfway around the world, in New Zealand. That they had to go Down Under to team up with Canadian chanteuse Leslie Feist is no small irony, but "You And I" may be the most immediately appealing track Wilco has... ever recorded; her voice blends perfectly with Jeff Tweedy's, and the band smartly stays out of the way, placing their harmonies front-and-center. If nothing else on the record rises to such heights, Wilco (The Album) still holds together quite well as a cohesive work. The darkly personal "One Wing" strikes an enchanting middle ground between the band's daring and tuneful tendencies, while the bright pop sheen of "You Never Know" sports a mid-song guitar break that's a dead ringer for George Harrison's "My Sweet Lord" (almost certainly by design). And "Everlasting Everything" is probably the most appropriate closing number on any Wilco record; Tweedy's voice rings beautifully bittersweet with resignation as he acknowledges, "Everything goes, both the good and the bad."
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What to make of Wilco with an established lineup? The Whole Love marks three straight albums on which original members Jeff Tweedy and John Stirratt and 10-year veteran drummer Glenn Kotche have teamed with multi-instrumentalist Pat Sansone, guitarist Nels Cline and keyboardist Mikael Jorgensen — an unprecedented run of stability for the band. Personnel evolution has been intertwined with Wilco's ever-shifting sonic identity since its 1995 debut; now the challenge is to... change from within. And there are new horizons here: The seven-minute leadoff track "Art of Almost" is a cacophonous diversion from the more conventional approach of the band's last two albums, affirming Wilco's continuing desire to challenge their listeners and themselves. Cline seems increasingly comfortable cutting loose within Tweedy's song structures, blazing caustic vapor trails in "Dawned on Me" and "Born Alone," while Sansone arranges swells of strings to deepen darkness of "Black Moon." Everything is a prelude to the 12-minute closer "One Sunday Morning (Song For Jane Smiley's Boyfriend)," an epic, elegiac tale about a father and son set to a recurring melodic phrase that ebbs and flows via graceful acoustic instrumentation as the story gradually unwinds. It may be the apex of Wilco's career, a shining moment when the band's artistic ambition becomes one with its instinctive musicality.
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![Wilco [the album] album cover](http://images.emusic.com/music/images/album/126/521/12652105/155x155.jpg)
