Chris Whitley
Album: Rocket House

I knew Chris while growing up in Greenwich Village and seeing him play in the streets near my apartment on Bleecker Street. Years later, my great friend Louis Lepore was playing guitar in Chris’s touring band and Chris and I got to know each other as adults. When he was in town he would come to my studio and jam with me. We actually recorded ‘Little Torch” and “From a Photograph” before I was actually hired to record and produce the CD. Chris was the first artist to sign with Dave Mathews label ATO . When we started the recording in the fall of 2000. I was pretty burned out on drum looping and was dying to do a record with live musicians . Of course Chris had always done that and wanted to do a loop record. Lucky for him I had herniated one of my disks. I was in a lot of pain when I would sit, so we did a lot of drum loops and I produced a lot of the sessions actually lying on the floor. I co-wrote ‘To-Joy” with Chris out of a jam. “Say Goodbye to Yesterday” was actually one of my songs that Chris liked and just changed a few lyrics. “Radar” was my music track and Chris added the singing. Steven Barber was the third member of the trio core band of the recording and he played some great piano and Wurlitzer. I played the drums, most of the bass and some guitar too. I recorded the cd with engineer Danny Madorsky at my studio in Soho and mixed it at Green St recording. Guest musicians included DJ Logic, Dave Mathews, Blonde Chapman (Rolling Stones back up singer) and Bruce Hornsby among others. The sessions were fiery and Chris and I had a few major blowouts, but I always knew we were making a great record so it was cool, and we did. We did a few promo gigs that summer. There is a link to some videos of some of those gigs on this page. Chris and I always stayed close until he passed away . When ever he was in town we would hang out. He was a lovely person and a tremendous talent I miss him very much.

Chris Whitley