Favorite music

I went to high school with Chris Whitley in Vermont - what a great guitar player. Looks like the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. Thanks for the links, Albert

I'll second Lanois's own, "The Beauty of Wynona", and, "Acadie"

Amazing you went to school with Chris Whitley, that made me look him up:

Yeah, Chris was a great guy. He hung with a rough crowd, but got along with everyone, and was well liked. He was one of those folks who was wise beyond his years. Smoked like a chimney, even back then, which I believe is what cut his life so short. He was pretty passionate about dirt bikes too - big Bultaco fan, which is what he was riding back then (late 70's). Being a rider, I loved the line from his debut album, from, Look What Love Has Done:

Used to be when things got tight
I could bid you a well bye bye
Riding some two-wheeled sex machine
Like I don't have to try

Of all his albums, that first one, Living with the Law, remains my favorite. Love the tune, Phone Call from Leavenworth. We actually had a second celebrity in our graduating class - along with Chris there was Melissa Leo who's gone on to become a truly great actress. Also mature beyond her years, and also well-liked. This was a "progressive" public school in Bellows Falls, Vermont. I say progressive because back then they had moved into a custom made building (that still houses the school) where the classrooms have no walls (just a big open warehouse like space that is divided with movable dividers). Other than that, it was just another public high school.

PS You can find more about Chris Whitley on his website. From there:

Chris Whitley has a special connection to Rockingham and Bellows Falls; he spent his teenage years with his mother, brother Daniel and sister Bridget in a cabin on a dirt road in the back hills of Rockingham. It's where he first picked up a guitar. And it is where he returned in the late nineties to record one of his most enduring cds, the gorgeously stark and somber DIRT FLOOR.

I swear he was channeling the ghost of Hendrix and had no idea he was that much of a guitar virtuoso.

Another guitar great, Kelly Joe Phelps, dedicated a tune on his last album, Tunesmith Retrofit, to Whitley.

Richard - good call on, Shadows and Light - one of the great live performance albums Joni did. But I thought Don Alias was on drums for that performance? I'm sure I've listened to that album fifty times or more and could swear she introduces Don Alias on drums and congos. Was it different on the vids?

Thanks for keeping me straight!

Gotch'er back, bro'. Love, Amelia, as well. I'm also partial to her more, er, saccharine early work...one, your namesake; The Last Time I Saw Richard, last cut on, Blue (classic/flawless album - probably ties with Court and Spark as my favorite). All her early stuff gets to me, right through the mid-career jazz stuff. I think once she got to, Dog Eat Dog, she lost me. Nothing at all after that has quite the same power for me. I've never seen the vid you are talking about though. Send it on along with some of those stuffed peppers your wife makes! Word to Elvis and Omar.

Albert, every time I read your posts I find myself pining for a good turntable rig again. Kind of like a Pavlovian response, or a jones'n junkie. Digital is my methadone, but you know it ain't the same. Keeps me out of trouble though...