Tuesday, September 3, 2013

Chris Whitley: Gone But Not Forgotten

I love being able to just wander the stacks and come across something that catches my eye. While checking on our music collection I saw Dislocation Blues by Chris Whitley and Jeff Lang.  I know I had picked it up before and I guess I didn't love it at the time because I didn't make a copy (shhhh!) or buy my own copy (which I do for the stuff I realllly love.)  I took it home again and put it on the player this weekend and wow....I was just blown away this time out.  Funny how something that didn't really catch your attention before ends up being your new favorite thing...seems to happen to me a lot.  Chris Whitley was a talented guy who left us too soon, passing away in 2005.  I don't pretend to know about his blues "chops" or how talented he was as a guitar player, but a quick Wikipedia search reveals that many musicians considered him to be quite the heavyweight.




I first became aware of Chris Whitley in 1991 when his debut album, Living With The Law was released. The big single off of that was Blue Sky Country.  My memory is fuzzy as to why I became interested; it was either because of the single or because the album was produced by Daniel Lanois, who produced U2's two biggest albums, The Joshua Tree and Achtung Baby. (On a side note, if it weren't for U2 and Daniel Lanois, there are plenty of bands and artists I never would have come across or learned to appreciate more; Sinead O'Connor, Gavin Friday, Lone Justice, BB King, Clannad, Emmylou Harris, Johnny Cash, and Willie Nelson, to name a few.) I hadn't listened to the album in quite some time but after listening to Dislocation Blues I pulled it back out and was transported back to 1991, when I was  listening to the album in my room and dreaming of being on a road trip to somewhere desolate with no place to stay but some dusty old motel with a dusty old bar.  That's the vision Living With The Law gave me back then and Dislocation Blues gives me now.

If you're interested in hearing Living With The Law, it's available on Freegal, which you can connect to via our website, and Dislocation Blues is available in our catalog.


Enjoy!

GingerMusicKid

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