If Chris Whitley could brave a big arena full of Tom Petty fans all by himself, I figured I could brave a filling or three.
Chris Whitley opening solo for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. Knickerbocker Arena. Michael Hochanadel photo
You know the drill – yeah, right; too lame even for a bad pun – tilted way back, face in bright light, mouth full of tools.
Last week, there I was, tilted, face lit, tools in mouth – but with Grado headphones filling ears and spirit with Whitley’s “Living With The Law” (1991). And I noticed his slide guitar solo in “Poison Girl” was in the same key as the drill. (You know the drill.)
This took me right back to snowy nighttime Montreal streets with my brother Jim in a gang of musicians, seeking late dinner during sessions for a Chris Rawlings album. Fresh out of the Navy, I felt as lost in the wide world as a ship whose compass has failed, but felt welcomed by those players. A taxi hooted nearby and fiddler Gilles Losier, famed for his pitch, called out “F-sharp!” Others stopped walking to argue the taxi’s tone.
What would they have said of the Chris Whitley/drill chord in my dentist’s office?
And, more broadly, what is music for, and can it be for anything but itself?
Paraphrasing the great band War, Maybe with more humor than truth: “Music, what is it good for? Absolutely everything” – but mainly just itself.
I was using Whitley’s music to help get through some dental work, just as I’d brought Miles Davis’s “Kind of Blue” into the Ellis Hospital cardiac “cath-lab” for angioplasty and son Zak told me he once used the same album to help fight the flu.
Nonetheless, something about that made me uncomfortable, like using “sofa-sized” to measure art-work on a wall.
Listening for listening’s sake somehow feels more right than using music as background, as dinner party hosts do, or restaurants. And you’re correct if you feel restaurants now crank up the music to turn tables faster. Studies show they do.
Some other offenses against music:
Walking in Thacher Park with son Zak on Sunday, we met many parties on the trail including a woman toting Bluetooth speaker cranked way too loud.
Whenever a commercial comes on that uses a song I love by an artist I admire – Bob Dylan, say, or Nick Drake’s “Pink Moon” – I always mute the TV.
No chance I’ll ever have to do that with a Chris Whitley song, or that any of his songs will fail to lift me and teach me and make me feel.
But I Digress, Pt. 1 – Whitley opened for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers at the Knickerbocker Arena in Albany on Sept. 21, 1991. Nobody knew who he was except those few of us who already recognized his talent from “Living With The Law.”
Digress, Pt. 2 – My now-retired dentist Jeff Wilson loved music and we talked about it all the time; i.e., he talked while working on me and I answered after rinsing. Early on, I used music-as-anesthetic/distraction; and he always wanted to know whose tunes I’d brought. I quickly felt more comfortable, we talked, and when we’d meet up at shows, I was always glad to see him.
Digress, Pt. 3 – Whitley went deeper into demon-land in his songs than almost any other songwriter. A restless, tormented talent and striving, soulful spirit, he made blues of a very original and intensely spooky flavor.
He released more than a dozen albums from 1991 to 2003 but never earned mass success.
When I met him (backstage at Bearsville Theater, outside Woodstock), I noticed his guitar had words and drawings childishly scrawled on it in ballpoint. I asked him about this and he said Trixie did it. I like it that he didn’t try to stop her or remove her markings.
Trixie later played in Black Dub, the trance-funk band that Lanois built with jazz drummer Brian Blade and bassist Daryl Johnson.
Lanois produced such great albums as U2’s “Joshua Tree,” Bob Dylan’s “Oh, Mercy” and the Neville Brothers’ “Yellow Moon” – and Chris Whitley’s debut album “Living With The Law,” in his New Orleans studio.
When Whitley signed this copy of “Living With The Law” for me, he wrote “Vaya Con Dios.”
Right back at you, man. Whitley died November 20, 2005 at 45.
Roger Rees summarized his time on earth eloquently here:
https://www.loudersound.com/features/fallen-angel-the-life-and-death-of-chris-whitley
Some bonus photos: Thacher Park, Chris Whitley, Zak
Hoke's Jukebox 