Taste in music is a funny thing; you like what you like, you can't always explain why you like it. Sometimes you like music that seems to run totally counter to what you think you should like.
When I was about 12 or so, one of my favorite songs, one that actually made me weep, was "I Need You," by America. I cringe now to think that I liked it, but hey. It's a pretty song, and it was 1972. That's why those of us who were teenagers in the 70s are so schizophrenic in our musical tastes: we went from Bread's "Guitar Man" in '72, to Aerosmith's "Dream On" in '73 to the era of disco with Donna Summer's "Love to Love You Baby" in '75, to Sex Pistols' "God Save the Queen" in '77. In five years!
This explains why we needed a wide variety of liquor and drugs to accompany the variety of music. Pink Floyd on acid? Great. Pink Floyd on crank? Not so much.
Since then, musical trends have come and gone, and say what you will about a lot of the crap that came out of the 70s...it was probably the most musically diverse decade ever.
But sometimes, something sticks. An artist, a genre...you take it into your soul, and you love it always. In the early 70s, for me, that would have been Elton John...before he started wearing the stupid platforms and glasses. I can't stand him now.
In the 90s and beyond, that artist was Chris Whitley. With his bluesy voice and sexually charged songs, he provided the musical accompaniment on my hump island. (If you were a guy and you took a gal to see a CW show, you'd have no trouble getting laid afterward.) We shook hands once, and if I'm not mistaken, which I probably am, we had significant eye contact on the street before a show at the Tin Angel.
His songs can be difficult, esoteric, filled with metaphor and philosophical challenges that are beyond the reach of the mainstream. Sometimes beyond my reach.
But he wrote and sang and played guitar with soul and a depth of conviction that seemed not of this world. He was an artist who stayed true to himself, and did not roll over and conform simply to sell records. Which is why he didn't sell many.
But that wasn't the point.
He profoundly affected my appreciation of music in general, and his sound reaches in and pounds my heart and nourishes my soul. He got inside me and set up camp inside my bones and visits me still.
He was my age, and he died young. I think he knew he would:
"There's a dirt floor underneath here
To receive us when changes fail.
May this shovel loose your trouble;
Let them fall away.
Well the mist shall be your blanket
While the moss shall ease your head.
As the future is soon forgotten;
As the dirt shall be your bed."
--Dirt Floor
I miss you, Chris.
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