Rounder / Umgd
2007
Dislocation Blues
About This Album
Recorded in April of 2005, seven months before Chris Whitley's death from lung cancer, Dislocation Blues is a fine, perhaps even glorious, epitaph. Aussie blues guitarist Jeff Lang and Whitley, friends since the mid-'90s, hooked up as part of an Australian tour and took a couple of weeks to record these 14 songs (the final two, Robert Johnson's "Hellhound on My Trail" and Whitley's "Kick the Stones," are uncredited) with the rhythm section of Grant Cummerford and Ashley Davies. This collection of traditional blues tunes such as "Stagger Lee," covers of Bob Dylan's "When I Paint My Masterpiece" and "Changing of the Guard," and originals from the catalogs of both men is an intimate, loose, deeply intuitive, and complementary set. Whitley plays his trademark National Steel for a good portion of this (all but one cut, actually), while Lang plays National, amplified lap steel, and electric and acoustic guitars, while the rhythm section -- using a trap kit and upright and bowed bass -- burrows deep into the spaces these songs inhabit. Whitley's tunes such as "Velocity Girl," "Rocket House," and "Dislocation Blues" resonate more truthfully in this environment -- much as they did in his last few years playing live -- than they did on his earlier studio recordings.
Track List (try tracks 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 and 11)

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