Today, in honor of the recently deceased Jay Bennett, I will share a prior incarnation of Wilco. Jay was a guitarist, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist who joined Wilco a few years after their formation and was booted from the group a few years later, primarily due to personality and creative conflicts with the band's leader, Jeff Tweedy. It appears that Jay died tragically young of an overdose of pain relievers while waiting for a hip replacement surgery last month. Wilco has changed a lot over the years, so we may revisit different stages of their live act in the future. (They are still on Rolling Stone's Top Ten Live Bands list, and NPR recently crowned them "the best live band in America.")
For today, we'll take a look at how Wilco sounded when Jay Bennett was a member, and when I was first lucky enough to see them play in Madison. This song was written when Wilco was still in its "roots rock," "alt-country" continuation of what its predecessor, Uncle Tupelo, had been doing.
Jay Bennett is the crazy looking bastard with the dreadlocks on guitar. The song is "Outtasite (Outta Mind)," which was the first Wilco song I ever heard when the old Madison alt station 92.1 WMAD put it in their rotation in late 1996. By Feb. 1997, I saw them play live at the Barrymore and they've been in my top 5 ever since.
"Look out, here I come again and I'm bringing my friends."
RIP Jay Bennett, 1963-2009.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment