Chris Whitley

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Chris Whitley
Chris Whitley
Background information
Born	August 31, 1960 Houston, Texas, US
Died	November 20, 2005 (aged 45)
Genres	Blues
Occupations	Singer-songwriter, musician
Instruments	vocals, resonator guitar, guitar, banjo
Years active	1983-2005
Labels	Columbia, Work, Messenger, Classic, ulfTone, Valley Entertainment, ATO, Legacy, Red Parlour, Tradition & Moderne
Website	www.chriswhitley.com
Notable instruments
1931 National Style O 1931 National Triolian

Christopher Becker Whitley (August 31, 1960 – November 20, 2005) was an American blues singer-songwriter and guitarist.

Highly acclaimed by critics, Whitley achieved modest mainstream success, but had a devoted following. Whitley's style was rooted primarily in blues, but drew on an array of influences and was constantly changing. In 2001, the New York Times described his arc as "restless, moving into noise-rock and minimalist jazz evoking Chet Baker and Sonic Youth as much as Robert Johnson".^[1]

Early life

Whitley was born in Houston, Texas. His father was an art director and his mother was a sculptress. He spent years in Dallas and then Oklahoma, Connecticut, Mexico and Vermont during his youth. His parents "grew up on race radio in the South" and their music tastes (Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf leading to Bob Dylan and Jimi Hendrix) influenced their son.^[2] He learned to play guitar when he was 15.^[3]

Career

He spent the early 1980s busking on the streets of New York City and played with Marc Miller (of Ambitious Lovers), Arto Lindsay (of The Lounge Lizards) and Michael Beinhorn (of Material).^[4][5]

Given a ticket to Belgium in 1983, he stayed there for four years and recorded several albums and saw moderate success with bands Kuruki, 2 Belgen, Nacht Und Nebel, Alan Fawn, and A Noh Rodeo.^[6] Alan Gevaert (dEUS), A Noh Rodeo's bassist, continued to work with Whitley and played bass on his first three mainstream releases.^[7]

In 1988, U2/Peter Gabriel producer Daniel Lanois discovered Whitley while he was playing at Mondo Cane in New York City and helped get him a record deal with Columbia Records. Lanois' protégé, Malcolm Burn, produced Whitley's Stateside début album Living with the Law (1991) (and returned to produce Soft Dangerous Shores in 2005). Two of his singles charted in the United States on the Billboard Mainstream Rock charts: "Big Sky Country" (#36, 1991) and "Living with the Law" (#28, 1991).^[8]

Whitley played a brand of confessional acoustic and electric blues, mixed with modern rock. His lyrics often contained overt sexual and religious references and sometimes bordered on the surreal. Whitley mainly played the National resonator guitar made famous by many of the great Mississippi delta blues players of the 1930s. Whitley also 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" with Bob Weir, Rob Wasserman, and Jeffrey Clemens.

He was fond of covering Robert Johnson, Bob Dylan, and Lou Reed but also covered a diverse selection of artists live and on record: 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.^[9]

Though relatively unknown to the mainstream, he worked with many other mainstream and well known musicians throughout his career. In 2000, Whitley recorded Perfect Day with Chris Wood and Billy Martin from the famed trio Medeski Martin & Wood. Dave Matthews and Bruce Hornsby also appeared on 2001's Rocket House. He also recorded with Shawn Colvin (on Fat City), Cassandra Wilson (on Blue Light 'til Dawn and New Moon Daughter), Rob Wasserman and Les Claypool (on Wasserman's Trios), Johnny Society (on Wood and Clairvoyance), Joe Henry (on Fuse), Michael Shrieve (on Fascination), Chocolate Genius (on GodMusic), Ely Guerra (on Lotofire), Goat (on All of My Friends), Dave Pirner of Soul Asylum (on Faces & Names), Clint Mansell (on the Knockaround Guys soundtrack), DJ Logic, Little Jimmy Scott, Mike Watt, Daniel Lanois, and Jeff Lang.^[10]

In early 2004, Whitley's "Breaking Your Fall" from Hotel Vast Horizon (2003) won in The 3rd Annual Independent Music Awards for Best Folk/Singer-Songwriter Song.^[11] He won again the following year in The 4th Annual Independent Music Awards for Best Blues/R&B Song with "Her Furious Angels" from War Crime Blues (2004).^[12] Whitley was also an inaugural member of The Independent Music Awards' judging panel to support independent artists. ^[13]

His daughter Trixie Whitley is singer, rhythm guitarist, part-time drummer, and keyboardist for Daniel Lanois' Black Dub and has her own band.^[14]

Equipment

Whitley regularly used the following musical equipment^[15]:

• 1931 National Style O (with Barcus-Berry magnetic Dobro pickups)
• 1931 National Triolian (with Barcus-Berry magnetic Dobro pickups)
• 1936 Gibson L-0 acoustic guitar
• 1956 National Reso-Phonic (with an old Danelectro pickup)
• 1958 Gibson ES-125 (used a lot on Terra Incognita (1997))
• 1967 Gibson Melody Maker (used a lot on Din of Ecstasy (1995))
• 1995 Bart Reiter five-string banjo
• Juice Box tube DI
• Fender Pro Junior amplifier
• Dunlop (purple) flat pick and metal fingerpicks on his ring and middle fingers. On his pinky he wore a slide he made from a piece of bicycle handlebar, which was cut so that he could rotate it out of the way for fretting.
• boot board amplified with a Fishman upright bass transducer

Because of his unique style of playing, he used many alternate tunings for his guitars. [1]

Death

In fall 2005, Whitley cancelled his tour due to health issues. Dan Whitley, his brother, revealed on November 11, 2005 that he 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; his brother, Dan, and daughter, Trixie, publicly announced his passing.

Tributes

Although Whitley wasn't a mainstream act, his passing resonated throughout the music community and garnered coverage and press throughout the world, ranging from Time, the New York Times, and National Public Radio to a tribute mention at the 2006 Grammy Awards.

Daniel Delgado, Bruce Springsteen, Bruce Hornsby, Tom Petty, Don Henley, Iggy Pop, Alanis Morissette, John Mayer, Gavin DeGraw, and Keith Richards all count themselves admirers of Whitley's music.^{[16][17][18][19]}

"[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."^[20] – John Mayer

"Chris Whitley, my friend since 1988. The deep soul he was gifted with is the soul that challenged his life journey. I will forever remember his beauty." – Daniel Lanois

Faroese artist Teitur wrote "Legendary Afterparty" (from The Singer) as a tribute to meeting Whitley.

New York songwriter Matt Keating, a neighbor and close friend of Whitley for several years, wrote the song "They Came in May," in memory of Whitley. The track appears on Keating's 2008 recording, Quixotic.

Peer and critical praise

"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." – Dave Matthews

"[That] boy...plays like three men."^[21] – Robert Lockwood, Jr.

"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." – Detroit Free Press

"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" – RollingStone.com

Discography

• Living with the Law (1991)
• Din of Ecstasy (1995)
• Terra Incognita (1997)
• Dirt Floor (1998)
• Live at Martyrs' (1999/2000)
• Perfect Day featuring Billy Martin and Chris Wood (2000)
• Rocket House (2001)
• Long Way Around: An Anthology: 1991-2001 (2002)
• Pigs Will Fly (soundtrack) with Warner Poland and Kai-Uwe Kohlschmidt (2003)
• Hotel Vast Horizon (2003)
• Weed (2004)
• War Crime Blues (2004)
• Soft Dangerous Shores (2005)
• Reiter In with The Bastard Club (2006)
• Dislocation Blues with Jeff Lang (2006)
• On Air (2008 - recorded live 2003)

External links

• Chris Whitley's Messenger Records Website
  • Obituary at Messenger Records site
• The Chris Whitley Discography

Footnotes