Christmas week ended sadly for the music world with the news of alt-folk singer & songwriter Vic Chesnutt's death at age 45 Christmas Day in Athens, Georgia. Death came for him at a hospital following a coma apparently caused by an overdose of muscle relaxants, according to filmmaker & family spokesman Jem Cohen. Paralyzed in a single-car drunk-driving wreck in 1983, Chesnutt went on to make such brilliant albums as "Little" (1990, produced by R.E.M.'s Michael Stipe) & "About to Choke" (1996).
Chesnutt didn't sell many records, but he was a favorite among discerning critics, a prolific songwriter who performed with disarming candor & dark humor in a wheelchair. An outspoken critic of the U.S. healthcare system, Vic complained that several operations over the years had left him & his wife deeply in debt, despite the financial help of prominent musician friends. Born in Jacksonville (Fla.), James Victor Chesnutt was adopted & raised in Zebulon, Georgia, where his grandfather gave him guitar lessons.
Chesnutt recently told "Fresh Air" host Terry Gross: "It was only after I broke my neck that I really started realizing that I had something to say." In a Dec. 26 NY Times obituary, Ben Sisario writes that "[m]usicians flocked to work with him... The constant in his career was a keen poetic intelligence that could be sardonic or unsparingly confessional." In a soft, broken-sounding voice, Vic sang about his struggles to find peace in a life filled with physical & emotional pain. He played simple guitar chords because, he said, his damaged fingers couldn't play the jazzier ones.
In one of his two recent albums, "At the Cut," the frequently suicidal Chesnutt describes death as a lover in the song "Flirted with You All My Life," which includes the suddenly ironic lyric:
"When you touched a friend of mine
I thought I would lose my mind
But I found out with time that really
I was not ready, no, no, cold death
Oh, death, I'm really not ready."
His painful, triumphant sojourn on Earth has ended. For more about Vic see the 1993 documentary "Speed Race: Welcome to the World of Vic Chesnutt." Or check out the 1996 benefit CD "Sweet Relief II: The Gravity of the Situation," which features Chesnutt covers by R.E.M., Madonna, The Smashing Pumpkins, The Indigo Girls & others. Proceeds go to the Sweet Relief Musicians Fund, a nonprofit that offers medical support to musicians in need.
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