VIA PRESS RELEASE | New West Records is proud to reissue Vic Chesnutt’s seminal Texas Hotel and New West Records catalog throughout 2017. Chesnutt’s 1990 debut album, Little, was produced by Michael Stipe and was released Friday, January 27th. Drunk (1993) will follow next month, Is The Actor Happy? (1995) in March, an unannounced mystery release in April, Silver Lake (2003) in May, Ghetto Bells (2005) in June, and a final, never before released mystery LP, in late 2017.
Silver Lake and Ghetto Bells will both see their first US vinyl pressings and among the LPs, over 30 bonus tracks will be included and available on vinyl for the first time. Each album has been remastered and pressed on high quality 180g vinyl with a limited edition color vinyl version being available for each via PledgeMusic. Each title will also include high-resolution 96kHz/24-bit downloads.
Chesnutt received little commercial success but overwhelming critical acclaim during his lifetime. In 2006, NPR Music placed him in the top five of the ten best living songwriters, along with Bob Dylan, Tom Waits, Paul McCartney, and Bruce Springsteen. His songs have also been covered by R.E.M., Garbage, Smashing Pumpkins, Joe Henry & Madonna, Fugazi, Neutral Milk Hotel, Sparklehorse, and many others.
A drunk driving accident at the age of eighteen left Chesnutt a quadriplegic. He switched fluidly from bass to rhythm to lead on a nylon-stringed acoustic guitar, oftentimes in the same song, with the use of only two fingers. Kristin Hersh, a founding member of the acclaimed band Throwing Muses, toured with Chesnutt for close to a decade and became a close friend. Her memoir of their time spent together, Don’t Suck, Don’t Die, was released to rave reviews in 2015.
In her new biography for the Texas Hotel and New West Records catalog reissues, she writes, “Vic Chesnutt songs are often funny, occasionally anthemic, and always lonely. Though Vic felt life acutely and observed the world with a keen, unfaltering eye, he seemed ever the outsider.” She added, “The noise Vic made was an ode to his own story but also a heartfelt appreciation of his fellow humans” and “He seemed obsessed with truths much deeper than most of us are allowed to go.”
After more than a dozen acclaimed releases into his twenty year career as a recording artist, Chesnutt took his own life on Christmas Day 2009. After Chesnutt’s death, Michael Stipe spoke to NPR, stating, “He was able to bring levity to very dark emotions and feelings, and he had a humor that was really quiet unusual. I said recently that I thought he was one of our greatest songwriters, and one of our greatest voices.”
