R.I.P. Jay Bennett
I just found out that Jay Bennett passed away. This is very strange and very tragic and very sad. He was a part of my life more than most semi-famous people.
And, honestly, I have been thinking about him the past few days and now I find this out and it’s so strange. I spent a good part of yesterday listening to his free record, “Whatever Happened I Apologize” and I was listening to “Being There” and I woke up this morning and kept thinking that Jeff Tweedy may not want to admit it but that things weren’t the same since Jay left the band. Things were somehow too clean, too precise. Honestly, yesterday. Yesterday I was listening to the two free songs they have on the record label/website that put out the free record and I was thinking I needed to get back to my home computer to download everything. And I saw that the label was putting together a fundraising thing to put that record out on vinyl and they’d only raised a bit of money as of yesterday although I’m sure it will go up now
I’d emailed with Jay a bunch over the last year and sometimes with some thoughts that we might work together but nothing really serious. But I’d followed the development of the new studio and I was on the website yesterday and thinking I’d check in with him one more time to see if he got the record I had sent. The last time we emailed he seemed to bristle when I called “The Magnificent Defeat” “chaotic”. Then we got to talking about how production changes songs and how simple folk songs lie at the heart of popular music and he was talking about this documentary he’d seen about John Mellencamp and a drinking game where every time Mellencamp distilled some tune to a “simple little folk song” you’d have to take a shot.
I’ve been following Jay for a long time and had long attributed much of the success to my favorite period of Wilco (Being There -> Yankee Hotel) to him. I remember picking up random little tidbits about him with relish. His vintage keyboard collection. His influence felt on songs like “Far Far Away” and all over “Summerteeth”. I wrote a review of ‘Being There’ in 2000 and even then mentioned Jay:
All of this would be so much bullshit, however, if the music and the abilities of the band didn’t match up to their artistic conception. For this, Tweedy and Wilco owe a huge debt to the addition of Jay Bennet, Wilco’s musical everyman who had the musical and studio experience to augment Tweedy’s chords into full-fledged songs, rich with texture and harmony. And it is in the production of the album that Being There moves beyond an interesting exercise into the realm of beauty.
I remember dreaming about having him produce some of my music and when we were emailing back and forth about it it seemed very surreal and I was thinking about what it would be like to actually be in the studio with him and whether it would work or not. It wasn’t something that was right around the corner or anything of the sort but it was just a little fragment. It was a real fragment of my life. He wasn’t my best friend and we didn’t know each other well but we had conversed and I knew of him and I know that people in Chicago are going to be much more affected than I am and my heart goes out to his familiy and all of the incredible musicians he’s worked with.
I’m sorry, Jay. I hope it was peaceful at the end. You will be missed.
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Natasha
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Igor
