Vic Chesnutt, one of the greatest songwriters of our time and as charismatic a concert performer as Springsteen despite being confined to a wheelchair, committed suicide through an overdose of muscle relaxants. His tragic life was inextricably intertwined with his art. At age 18, driving drunk, a car crash left him paraplegic; never much of a reader before that, he started reading voraciously. He also began to take music-making much more seriously, and his reading eventually influenced his lyrics. His physical abilities varied from night to night; how well he functioned could determine his set lists, and for a while he played with his guitar pick superglued to his fingers.

Overcoming adversity, from 1990 through this year he had 14 albums released under his own name plus two as brute. in a collaboration with the band Widespread Panic.

The power of his songwriting never brought commercial success as measured in terms of radio play and hit singles. Many of his songs were casually, unabashedly gritty and grubby in their sordid, true-to-life details. Their quirky lyrics and his quavering, wandering singing style made him way too uncomfortable a listening experience for the majority of music consumers. But a vast array of fellow musicians greatly admired his work.

First, and most famously, fellow Athens, GA resident Michael Stipe of R.E.M. produced Chesnutt’s 1990 debut, Little, in memorably sparse, raw fashion, mostly just acoustic guitar and vocals with a bit of adornment from a cheap electric keyboard that was the perfect touch. Chesnutt and Stipe weren’t friends at the time; Stipe was just so knocked out after hearing Chesnutt’s songs in solo performances in Athens that, as he remembered in his 2004 notes for the album’s reissue, he felt compelled to “get some of these songs down on tape before you drink yourself to death.”

As Stipe wrote on the following page, “The marvel then and now is how these songs and his voice are so tattered and yet underneath is a songwriters ability and heart to match the Greats of our Time, from Dolly Parton to Jimmy Webb, to Dylan and beyond, forwards and back. The orchestration rests on economy of gesture and brilliance of character, both in the lyric, the song, and the voice.” (Lest it seem like Stipe was patting himself on the back: a paragraph earlier he wrote, “That I got producer credit on this lp is a laugh – there wasn’t a whole lot to do.”)

Their second collaboration, '91’s West of Rome, used more musicians and had a fuller sound. During the making of that album, filmmaker Peter Sillen shot a half-hour documentary about Chesnutt, Speed Racer: Welcome to the World of Vic Chesnutt, increasing public awareness of this unique artist. The 1996 tribute/benefit album Sweet Relief II: The Gravity of the Situation brought even more attention with its all-star array including among others R.E.M., Soul Asylum, Live, Cracker, Indigo Girls, and, improbably, Madonna and -- here's why -- her brother-in-law Joe Henry.

Attracted by his personal magnetism and undeniable talent, a wide variety of bands and artists were eager to work with Chesnutt; notably, Lambchop accompanied Chesnutt on his 1998 album The Salesman and Bernadette, and his two albums this decade on the Constellation label, North Star Deserter and At the Cut, were mainly produced by Fugazi’s Guy Picciotto with contributions from labelmates Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra.

At the Cut made my best-of-2009 list (full review here). This year also found Chesnutt bringing his career full circle with the October release Skitter on Take-Off, produced by Jonathan Richman and Tommy Larkins (Richman’s drummer), on which the only instruments heard are guitars, drums, and harmonium. After the sonic shock of those raging Constellation releases (such as the darkly glinting electric maelstrom of “Debriefing” [below] on North Star Deserter), at first it seemed less powerful, but it’s just much quieter. Right before the end, it peaks with the epic “Worst Friend,” a song in the lineage of “Howl” and “People Who Died,” occasionally comical and filled with grotesqueries, but ending on the starkly simple and devastatingly crushing line “and one friend who y’all ain’t, no ain’t even on speaking terms.”

I’ve written my fair share of musicians’ obituaries, but this is the first I’ve written with teary eyes. It’s not that I was close to the man; I never even met him. But his music and lyrics are so intimate that we his fans felt connected with him, and his concert performances were so riveting that the connection seemed as real as if we’d shared a beer with him while laughing and crying. How did he do it? Not by having us project a cheap romanticization of his plight onto the results to amplify their impact, but rather through such finely detailed, grandly verbose lyrics delivered so nakedly, so openly, that he made us feel what he felt.

Despite insurance, his physical condition created massive medical debt he had no hopes of paying off. A whole other essay could be written about this as another heart-wrenching example of how poorly our current health system deals with catastrophic illness, and yet another essay about how we neglect our most creative artists if they miss the commercial mark. But speculation about what drove him to suicide is futile. Metaphorically, I presume that the darkness that was such a big part of his songs eventually overtook him. At the Cut includes the soul-shaking masterpiece “Flirted with You All My Life,” about suicide; in it he sings, “Oh death, I’m really not ready.” Sad to say, that changed.

Close friend Kristin Hersh (Throwing Muses) is collecting donations at http://kristinhersh.cashmusic.org/vic to be given to Chesnutt’s family. Her heartfelt and highly personal tribute/reaction is well worth reading. - Steve Holtje

Mr. Holtje cherishes his memories of the two Chesnutt concerts he attended.