Faces in the Crowd: Chris Whitley

 

 

One of the most eclectic artists that I've come across over the years is a fella by the name of Chris Whitley.  Upon hearing his Living With The Law album, I was struck by the freshness he brought to the blues, almost as if this were a new template for that style of music. 

Whitley, who grew up in Texas, employed various open tunings and what I would call, a jazz player's sensibility in his approach to playing blues music.  Besides being gifted with a sure hand on the guitar, Whitley sang with a yodel-like quality similar to that of Hank Williams Sr.  Whitley's voice also contained a raw-boned huskiness that was perfectly suited for the type of new blues he was creating within the context of his music.  His ability to reinvent the blues genre brought him to the attention of the alternative rock community and during his career he recorded with such artists as Dave Matthews, Bruce Hornsby and two of the guys from Medeski, Martin and Wood.

 

From Fallen Angel: The Life and Death of Chris Whitley (Paul Rees Classic Rock site): “A tape of Whitley’s songs found its way to producer Daniel Lanois, then riding a hot streak from his work on U2’s The Joshua Tree. Lanois arranged for him to go to New Orleans to record at his studio in the French Quarter with the in-house engineer, Malcolm Burn. This session produced such wide-screen songs as Big Sky Country, and led to a deal with Columbia and his debut album. He was somebody who was obviously inspired by the blues as a basic form; he’d invented his own language and wasn’t playing by other people’s rules.”

While Living With The Law, which was released in 1991, Whitley began to search for different ways to play his special brand of blues music.  Over the following years, Living With The Law was considered a lost classic by many in the music community.  Produced by Daniel Lanois & Malcom Burns (who both had worked with U2 and Peter Gabriel), this record has a dense layered sound that reinforces Whitley's stark blues songs.  One element I found particularly moving was how several songs, such as Poison Girl and Big Sky Country, use a drone-like sound to great effect which in turn gives support to the open tunings that Whitley was using.  

 

All Music Review by JT Griffith: “Chris Whitley's 1991 debut, Living with the Law, was recorded in Daniel Lanois' New Orleans mansion...The sublimely dark, creepy, and possessed collection sounds completely out of place for the era of slick pop/rock…as the tortured album is rich with old-style sounds, from slide guitars to pedal steel.  Living with the Law has a full, ambient feel that transports the listener into the recording. Whitley humbly (and falsely) claims, at the beginning of the record, that God knows it's all been done. 

These 12 songs attempt an original look at an honest style and passionate mood that is lacking in much of rock music. Whitley sings of drug abuse, alienation, failure, and loneliness with a Delta blues flavor.  An exceptional and mesmerizing debut, one with the potential to inspire all who hear it. (This release is also fascinating for those who enjoy Rocket House. Influences on the 2001 album can be heard throughout Living with the Law, released a decade earlier.) An album Robert Johnson may have recorded, were he still alive.”

 

Here's some excerpts from Chris Whitley: A Brief Retrospective 

(Bill Hart, The Vinyl Press)

"Whitley threw almost everyone for a loop with his next album, Din of Ecstasy in 1995, a discordant mix of jagged, distorted rock that the LA Times observed likely “… will alienate Whitley’s first round of fans.” Had anybody been paying attention, Whitley wasn’t all blues, all the time; aside from the cues in Living with the Law, his years spent in Belgium gave him more than a taste for Euro-electronica, dance music and synth-pop."  This album is a challenging listen, and a radical departure in form from the far more accessible Living with the Law, but it contains superb guitar work and the tracks have a beautiful internal symmetry within the distortion and discord. It’s certainly not a polished product, and doesn’t fit neatly into any genre.

Whitley hung in with Sony (or the other way around) for one more album, 1997’s Terra Incognita, before artist and major label parted ways. This, his third album, was viewed as a big improvement over Din of Ecstasy, but at the time, it seemed to reflect an artist still adrift, in search of a mooring. Some critics viewed it as a welcome return to more conventional song forms, but it has adventurous, unconventional guitar playing. I don’t regard this album as an attempt at commercial compromise, but part of a continuing exploration. Whitley was still pushing boundaries here.

Whitley may have been adrift commercially, but not musically. Signed to a small New York City label, Messenger Records, Whitley next delivered the magnificent Dirt Floor, released in 1998. Classic Records (a label usually associated with high-end audiophile remasters) released it on a 45 rpm album, taken from a simple two track analog recording made in a barn in Vermont. The title track alone, little more than two minutes long, is worth the price of admission if you can find a copy. There is a rip to Whitley’s voice that doesn’t sound like an affectation, and I get goose bumps every time I listen to this track- it has a stunning ability to reach through the recording and touch you on a visceral level- and I’m not talking sonics here (though the recording is a killer).  There is also something absolutely transcendent about his voice here that, combined with the resonance of the guitar strings, is both ethereal and raw at the same time.  Whitley’s real link to the blues is less about genre than about genuineness in my estimation- something that can’t be faked. Maybe that’s why Living with the Law, his most polished and accessible album, doesn’t reveal the full measure of this artist."

 

When it came to playing the blues, Whitley created his own unique style.  Here are some excerpts from a rare interview that Whitley did for an online magazine called Elsewhere (based in New Zealand): "I don’t strum a guitar or come out of that Austin, Texas, country-folk heritage. I feel more -- I dunno -- acid-rock than that....then there’s the blues, which is a big part of what I do, although I have to say I find a lot of blues very boring - most blues in fact. I respect it, but don’t get much out of it.  I guess everyone needs a reference point but I don’t feel particularly rootsy or traditional,,,I love that rural blues thing, it’s like an idea before thinking about it. It has a real purity."

"Whitley’s wild spirit, and a deep-rooted sense of insecurity, led him to dismiss his first album as too polished, and he resolved to cut against the grain in future. There were other storm clouds on the horizon: the ending of his marriage, and a growing reliance on booze to combat his doubts and fears. Din Of Ecstasy came and went, as did a third album, Terra Incognita, after which Columbia dropped him."

Over the course of his career which spanned 25 years, Whitley released 14 albums.  Sadly, Whitley passed away in 2005 due to lung cancer.  Since then, his music has begun to receive wide acclaim. In 2019, Jonathan Mayor, a close friend of Whitley's, created a moving documentary about Whitley which was called Dust Radio.

 

 

 

 

DUST RADIO DOCUMENTARY

From the Inner Views website:   "Conveying emotional intensity, urgent desires and gritty reality were always at the core of singer-songwriter and guitarist Chris Whitley’s edgy folk-blues output. Those elements permeated his 2004 release War Crime Blues even more deeply. That’s not surprising given the album found Whitley, who died of lung cancer in 2005, passionately responding to the military aggression that continues to play out across much of the world. It also offered his perceptions of what it’s like to be someone from America who lives in Germany, and the wartime atrocities both countries have perpetrated. Entirely comprised of his raw, seductive vocals, stunning acoustic guitar work and multi-layered lyrics, the album represented one of his most direct, poignant and powerful statements.    

The sense of dislocation found in much of Whitley’s music also stemmed from his personal history. Born in Houston, Texas, Whitley lived a nomadic childhood, moving frequently across the Southeastern United States. At age 11, he relocated to Mexico with his mother after his parents divorced. They moved to Vermont in 1975, where at age 15, he began playing guitar in a local band that drew inspiration from the likes of Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page and Bob Dylan. In 1977, after quitting high school a year before graduating, Whitley journeyed to New York City and performed as a street busker.   

Looking for new musical avenues, he relocated to Belgium in 1981 and became part of that country’s synth-pop scene. Whitley performed with regionally-acclaimed Belgian acts including Kuruki, Nacht und Nebel and A Noh Rodeo. He wrote and performed music that straddled funk, rock and blues, and enjoyed modest success before returning to New York City in 1988. Renowned producer Daniel Lanois took an interest in his music shortly thereafter and helped him sign with Columbia Records.  Whitley’s solo debut, Living with the Law, was released in 1991. It was an adventurous blues-rock record full of rich colors and delicate atmospheres. Though the record was a critical and commercial success, Whitley didn’t feel it accurately mirrored his true leanings. For his 1995 follow-up, Din of Ecstasy, he chose to solely follow his muse. The eloquently dissonant record was steeped in aggressive, distorted guitar and had a darker, more brooding vibe than its predecessor."

 

IN HIS OWN WORDS: CHRIS WHITLEY ON SONGWRITING:

Chris Whitley Interviewed:  The Law Man Living with the Lore

 Graham Reid, Elsewhere 1991

“I love that rural blues thing, it’s like an idea before thinking about it.  It has a real purity.”

When Whitley puts that strange, primitive guitar sound together with his literate lyrics it also has a purity about it.  His lyrics flick out images and an acute visual sense which he attributes to both his parents being visual artists.

The Visions of an Artist with Both Feet Planted Firmly on the Ground

Ken Robison, The Fresno Bee, Nov 26, 1991

And what about those sometimes obtuse lyrics?  Whitley claims he’s just a guy trying to create visual images — to make people feel instead of think.

“I try to simplify complicated ideas, use small words, I’m comfortable with that.  Visual references are the simplest way to illustrate a complicated idea …. I try to put [my idea] across in working man’s terms, in hopes of being on the ground.  I hate intellectual stuff.  I want it to be ‘I understand this and I don’t know why.’  I want people to understand with their instinct more than with their brain.  I try to get at how something makes you feel.  The logistics of the lyrics don’t matter that much.  I try to paint something with lyrics.”

 

Chris Whitley Is Striving for Visceral Sounds 

Dan DeLuca, The Philadelphia Inquirer, June 23, 1995.

“My album Din Of Ecstasy is more confused,” says Whitley, who takes his power trio to the Khyber Pass for three nights, starting Monday. “Which is kind of the point. The gray areas are what attract me when I’m writing. I don’t write well in an obvious, clear kind of way. I’m best in a more mysterious in-between- the-words area.”

Whitley says his favorite artists are writers like David Byrne and Heroes- and Low-era David Bowie. They “deal in abstraction,” he says, “but you get a real clear feeling about what they’re singing about. As opposed to someone like Michael Stipe, who I never felt was talking about anything.”

“The stuff I love is real obvious and simple and dumb on the surface, but you can get something much deeper from it. It’s like Howlin’ Wolf or Kurt Cobain. It’s so human and so literal, but the sound of the music and the pain in their voice gives you a certain vibe that takes you away.  It’s excruciating and beautiful.”

 

Whitley Sweeps Bad Times Away with Dirt Floor 

Keith Spera, The New Orleans Times-Picayune, August 7, 1998

The stripped-down songs that litter Dirt Floor are made all the more striking by Whitley’s haunted vocals, the tension of his guitar and the fleeting images offered by his lyrics, which he fashions to be abstract.

“My stuff is always personal, but I don’t really go with a confessional thing, because I don’t think I’m confessing anything,” he said. “And I don’t think a song has to be about something to get your subconscious going. That’s where poetry comes from, when you’re not writing about a subject. Most pop songs are clear what they’re about. But most pop songs aren’t poetry, or art; they’re pop art, decorative art, different than a Dylan or a Hendrix.

“I think songs explain themselves to you by your subconscious, if you allow it and if you know how to let it prime your instinct. (On ‘Dirt Floor,’) I got a little wordy on a couple of these tunes, because with the pragmatics of just vocals and one instrument, there’s minimal ways you can deal with emotional tension, so I lean on words. This record has a bit of that in it, but I didn’t particularly know what I was writing about with each tune. That’s when they’re the most elemental, when there’s some instinct behind it. It can be anything, eroticism through life and death, very fundamental things.

That’s what I wanted to get to with this record. It’s also what I needed spiritually.”


Drinking With … Chris Whitley

 Jeff McErlain, New York Hangover, April 2000

 

Could you talk about your writing process?

"I used to write lyrics first when I began writing songs….  Nowadays I use chord, chord change or a riff as feeling or mood to try to define something lyrically.  Basically I try to play shit and mumble over it and listen to it in a Walkman and see what I’m trying to get at subconsciously.  I can’t really pick subjects and write about them — I’m not that much of a craftsman, I think that I’m not that motivated to just write about anything."

So the topics come from the mood of the song?

"Yeah, it’s trying to pull out what you’re feeling without really defining it too much consciously so that the emotion is more, perhaps more intense or more pure or trying to translate something else. It’s really trying to get at the subconscious for me. I think that’s the most exciting thing. I do respect big song writers from Burt Bacharach and Randy Newman to fuckin’ Tom Waits, you know, the people who are high craftsmen as well as write about a specific subject. I don’t think that is a strength of mine really, the song has to define itself a bit in order for me to be able to weed out the abstractions. I don’t mean like surrealism or something, it’s more like poetics. I read a lot of Charles Simic, Pablo Neruda, and lately, Garcia Lorca. But it’s also from visual art; my mom’s a sculptor. What I’m trying to say is, what the tune is literally about is not necessarily as important as the impetus and how resonant the expression is.

There is some abstract writing that really turns me off too, when I feel like the people are being arty or clever or just stupid. ….  You’ve got to admit, most pop music is pretty literal, it’s pretty obvious what it’s about, usually.

But when you’re writing for a pop audience you have to shoot to the lowest common denominator. I do think there’s a difference between entertainment and art. I don’t think art has as much purpose, in a way. It’s more important but it’s not as useful."

 

Chris Whitley:  Melancholic Resonance

Anil Prasad, Innervisions: Music Without Borders 2010

 

Tell me how you go about putting songs together…

I’ve found I have to pull things out in a musical way.  It’s hard for me to just write instrumental music or put poetry down on a page without music attached.  When I write with the two things happening simultaneously, I can usually encourage myself to articulate something and find inspiration without trying too hard.  The important thing for me is to not pressure myself while I’m doing it.  I try to trust my perceptions and feelings when I’m writing.  There’s usually more going on inside me than I directly realize.  I attempt to tap into my subconscious and experiential humanity.  Often, I write with a Walkman.  I’ll come up with a couple of chords and start mumbling into the Walkman without attaching words right away.  Then I’ll listen back to it and try to feel some words within my vamping.  I try to let the expression reveal itself to me.  It’s like writing by ear.  I can get images from the feeling in a chord or a sound, or from the tension that exists between two sounds.  Sometimes I won’t know why I’m writing the song or where it was coming from exactly until a year later.  The songs can end up having so many more levels that way ….

I think one of the most important things songwriters need to do is find an identity.  It’s a rare thing for listeners to be able to answer questions like “Who is this person singing this?” and “Where are they coming from?”  The answers are the things that make people want to listen to songwriters like Tom Waits, Neil Young, Nick Cave, and Bruce Springsteen.  They’re truly articulating something of themselves in their music.  They’ve attained something that’s the result of overlooking their limitations.  Earlier in my career, I overlooked my technical clumsiness as a musician.  When I started to accept my weirdness, it gave me strength as a songwriter and musician.  You have to trust your individuality.

 

AFTERLIFE:  TRIBUTES AND POSTHUMOUS RELEASES

After Chris’s passing, musicians and fans celebrated his life and music in various tribute events.  And, again lucky for us fans, we were delighted by several posthumous releases.

2006     February 11:  Chris Whitley Memorial Concert – With a concert and celebration of Chris at the Windham Hotel in Bellows Falls, the Vermont tribute featured Dan Whitley, Melissa Sheehan, and others.

February 17:  Chris Whitley – A Musical Celebration of His Life and Spirit, NYC

March 3:  Chris Whitley Tribute, Vooruit, Ghent, Belgium

March 4:   A Night to Remember – Chris Whitley Tribute Concert, Austin, TX, featuring Shawn Colvin, John Egan, DJ Logic, Vernon Reid, Doug Pinnick,

March 5:  Houston tribute at Warehouse Live featuring many of the same musicians as the Austin tribute.

March 28:  Red Parlor releases Reiter In, with “the Bastard Club.”

August 19:  ABC Music releases Dislocation Blues, produced by Jeff Lang and awarded Best Blues and Roots Album by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) in 2007. The album peaked at number 64 on the ARIA Charts, becoming the highest-charting album in Australia for both artists.

August 20:  Dislocation Blues: Tribute to the Late Chris Whitley, Sydney Australia. A CD-release party celebrating Chris’s collaboration with Jeff Lang and remembering Chris and his music.

2007      March 3: 2nd Chris Whitley Tribute, Bellows Falls, VT.

2008      April 24 -26: 3rd Celebration of Chris Whitley, Bellows Falls and Saxtons River, VT  The YT playlist below includes videos of Alejandro Escovedo, Vernon Reid, Dan & Trixie Whitley, and others paying tribute to Chris.

2011      On September 26, 429 Records releases Note of Hope: A Celebration of Woody Guthrie, including Chris’s contribution On the High Lonesome

2012      On May 7, Fire Records releases The Inner Flame: A Tribute to Rainer Ptacek, to which Chris (with Warren Zevon and Dave Pirner) contributed Powder Keg, recorded in a motel room December 6, 1996. 

 

FURTHER INVESTIGATION

If you are seeking further information on Chris Whitley

be sure to visit a website called ALL THINGS WHITLEY

 


Available @

MIND SMOKE RECORDS

 

 


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