Vic was my Elvis

If there's a note of sadness or detachment that runs through the posts around here over the next little while, it might have something to do with the fact that one of our greatest inspirations died over the holidays.

This line has probably gotten tired by now, but we'll throw it out there one more time: Vic Chesnutt was my Elvis. There's no singer or writer who has enthralled me nearly as much as Vic did. He was an astoundingly self-aware writer who clearly loved words (which is less common than you'd think), and exploited the full musicality of the language. He wrote beautifully with an uncommon literacy on his own faults and fears, and often addressed his own mortality. (It's made some of his songs almost too painful to hear so soon after he took his own life.)

We've penned about 1200 posts around these parts, but we'd hang it all up if we were ever able to turn a single phrase as eloquently and profoundly as Vic Chesnutt. We miss him.

Vic's Tiny Desk Concert
For those of you who are so inclined, here's a brief acoustic taste of Vic at NPR's All Songs Considered's Tiny Desk Concert series in April of this year.