The new issue of Classic Rock includes a look back over the all-too-short life of Chris Whitley, the Texan troubadour who took the blues into dark and strange new places, influencing everyone from Joe Bonamassa to Johnny Lang along the way. Here are ten essential tracks from this most tragic of cult artists.
Big Sky Country
Whitley introduced himself via this intoxicating and widescreen calling card which conjured up images ofsun-scorched prairie plains and rolling skies.
From: Living With The Law (1991)
Phone Call From Leavenworth
Plangent blues narrative that bottles the outlaw spirit of Johnny Cash with an otherworldly essence.
From: Living With The Law (1991)
Din
This densely constructed narcotic rush was the most approachable track from Whitley’s ‘difficult’ second album. Even then, to blues traditionalists it was as disorientating as an acid trip.
From: _Din Of Ecstasy _(1995)
Some Candy Talking
Like all the best bluesmen, Whitley was also a great interpreter, and this cover located a spooked soul at the heart of the original Jesus And Mary Chain track.
**From: **Din Of Ecstasy (1995)
Indian Summer
Whitley retreated to his father’s barn to lick his wounds, and made perhaps his finest record. On this track, his most affecting weeping wound, he sounds like a fallen angel.
**From: **Dirt Floor (1998)
Dirt Floor
Ageless blues hymnal that has the bone-dry feel of a desert and the beating heart of a poet. ‘There’s a dirt floor underneath here to receive us when changes fail’.
**From: **_Dirt Floor _(1998)
Rocket House
Loops, beats and Whitley’s Dobro resonator guitar conspire to fashion something entirely fresh and distinctive; as if the blues were being beamed back to earth from another galaxy.
From: Rocket House (2001)
Serve You
Brooding torch song, with Whitley’s daughter Trixie co-singing the main melody line and bringing a shaft of light to the encroaching darkness.
From: Rocket House (2001)
Breaking Your Fall
A hushed, atmospheric lament that circles around a mournful guitar figure. Imagine the blues reconfigured as the soundtrack to an art-house movie.
From: Hotel Vast Horizon (2003)
Invisible Day
Recorded underneath a bridge on the banks of the Elbe River in Dresden, Germany and into a hand-held microphone, this showcases Whitley naked and unadorned. As evocative as breath on a window.
From: War Crime Blues (2003)
