Terra Incognita

I remember where I was and with whom the first time I heard Sgt Peppers.  I remember how cold it was in my basement dorm room at Sioux Falls College the first time I heard Sympathy For The Devil.  The first time I heard a cut from Chris Whitley's "Living With The Law' in the early nineties was another one of those transforming musical experiences I'll always remember.  The lush, slow chords backing Chris's reedy, threatening voice that was always threatening to jump into falsetto.  The scary hallucinogenic allusions to religion, prison, death, redemption, love.  Every cut on the album astonishing.  In the right mood, I still listen start to finish, amazed.

K and I saw Chris Whitley in person twice, both times with Ernie and Mo, and both times in small venues where we could have  stepped up and slapped the cigarette out of his chain-smoking mouth.  It wouldn't have stopped him.  I thought it was mostly showmanship when he would stroke a huge power chord and then light up, mid song, take two or three deeeeep drags, and continue.  Now I think he couldn't help it.

The second time we saw him was at the Rhythm Room, which usually has a no-smoking policy.  I'm guessing CW wouldn't (or couldn't) play under such a restriction, because everyone who wanted to was smoking.  A burly, bald, heavily tattooed giant stood right next to K during the opening act, inhaling one after the other until she asked him to step away.  He courteously did before joining Whitley on stage as his drummer.  It got so bad in there, our eyes and throats burning, that we left before the first set was over.  That was the last time we or anybody else in Phoenix will see him.  Billboard.com reports that he has died at age 45 after - wait for it - "a long battle with lung cancer."