RIP: Chris Whitley

A really great genre-blending singer/songwriter named Chris Whitley died last weekend. He was someone whose music I really dug. His record Dirt Floor was a catalyst for a lot of the things I've been doing on the dulcimer lately. I was even considering his tune Indian Summer for the next record.

One of the things I found rather depressing is the picture that develops if you read between the lines. Not always the cleanest living rock star, he seemed to avoid, or negotiate most of the trappings of rock startdom. His was still a young man of 45, with much more to say. Whitley died in the home of a close friend, stopped mid-tour by the penultimate stages of lung cancer. The family speaks highly and lovingly of his voyage into the next world, and the angels down here that made his final days bearable. They put I nice face on it, but it occurs to me the guy died there because he probably didn't have medical insurance.

so you wanna be a rock in roll star...

CD update

Ms. Burns and I have finished the remainder of the tracks. Adding some vocally stuff and adding a guitar to Driving Forces (turns out my chart is basically unreadable if you actually can read music). Dan wants to add some djembe on like two tracks, then we sequence and mix. Will it be done for Christmas? well, we'll see. Christie is down there this week doing some fieldwork for school, and I will encourage her to put a fire under that boy.