Well, I’m feeling a bit better today. I do have to say though, when I get the notion of chucking it all and saying fuck it to music, I plan on going somewhere remote. I really enjoy the solitude of wide open spaces (oh man, the Susan Gibson song that the Dixie Chicks made famous – might have to choose that at some point) or in this case Big Sky Country. Maybe you’ve heard of Chris Whitley, most likely you haven’t. I was turned on to him a few years ago by two friends at two separate times in the same time frame of about a month. The first person was Kim Hall (I know her original name but I won’t divulge it here). Chris, was and probably still is her God for music. In fact when he died last November, I got an e-mail out of the blue from Kim. I hadn’t heard from her in probably 5 years. Of course Chris dies and the first person she thinks to contact is me, someone whom she hadn’t spoken too in years. I still can’t figure that one out.
Anyway, I went to see him play at the Mint one night. It was intense. How’s that for a short review? Here’s this short wirey guy stomping on a plank of wood playing these guitars that seem to swallow him up. He’s looking tougher than nails and out come these amazing blues songs. I was hooked. I saw him every time he came to Los Angeles. The last show I took a friend too, I felt really bad for Chris. You could see that he wasn’t doing well. The show was still powerful. This song is another one of those songs where when I hear it, I can hear my escape from the world. At the very least, the escape from a need to make money. I’m bit of a betting man, so I’ll wager that you probably get this feeling from time to time as well. Am I right? Well buy this song and savor that escape. Then spend some time listening to the entire album. Its transforming. In fact another album to pick up by Chris Whitley is ‘Dirt Floor’. One guitar, one mic, one guy. F****** Amazing. You get the picture.
(** disclaimer, if the label comes after me for this song being on here, I will take it down faster than you can say wholy cow. But I’ll leave the review and blog post **)