Vic Chesnutt, a prolific songwriter and independent recording artist who was a favorite of critics and fellow musicians, died on Christmas Day, Dec. 25, in an Athens, Georgia hospital. He was 45 and had been in a coma following an apparent overdose of muscle relaxants earlier in the week.
Chesnutt’s life had been filled with pain since a car crash at age 18 left him partly paralyzed and wheelchair-bound. That accident was the subject of some of his earliest recordings, of which he made more than 15 during his short life. Indeed, Chesnutt was quite candid about his own feelings and problems in his songs — many of which touched on themes of pain and mortality, including his own attempts at suicide. His most recent release, At The Cut, featured a track entitled “Flirted With You All My Life.” In an interview with National Public Radio’s Terry Gross that aired on “Fresh Air,” Chesnutt acknowledged: “You know, I’ve attempted suicide three or four times. It didn’t take… I’ve flirted with death my whole life.”
Born in Jacksonville, Florida on November 12, 1964, Chesnutt was later adopted and grew up in Zebulon, Georgia. As a child, he learned guitar from his grandfather. Following his car accident, Chesnutt settled in Athens and immersed himself in the music scene.
He was the subject of a 1993 documentary, Speed Racer: Welcome to the World of Vic Chesnutt, while many of his songs were covered by such artists as the Indigo Girls, Madonna and R.E.M. (whose Michael Stipe produced his first two albums) for Sweet Relief II: The Gravity of the Situation, a 1996 benefit compilation album that raised funds for musicians’ health care.
Although she frequently collaborated and performed with Chesnutt, close friend Kristin Hersh (a solo artist formerly with Throwing Muses) told Entertainment Weekly that she considered him inimitable. “Vic played his own music, and that’s the way it should have been played, not by us peasants,” she said. “I miss him more than I’ve missed anybody ever.” Hersh has set up a webpage to raise funds for Chesnutt’s widow, Tina. On the page, she also pays tribute to her friend:
“What this man was capable of was superhuman. Vic was brilliant, hilarious and necessary; his songs messages from the ether, uncensored. He developed a guitar style that allowed him to play bass, rhythm and lead in the same song – this with the movement of only two fingers. His fluid timing was inimitable, his poetry untainted by influences. He was my best friend. … I saw him as unassailable – huge and wonderful, but I think Vic saw Vic as small, broken. And sad… I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to listen to his music again, but I know how vital it is that others hear it… And if I’m honest with myself, I admit that I still feel like he’s here, but free of his constraints. Maybe now he really is huge. Unbroken. And happy.”
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