Chris Whitley at Martyrs in Chicago. He was touring to promote his 'Dirt Floor' album. He'd been big in the early 90's with the song Big Sky Country off of Living with the Law, and then he went his own way and released a couple of albums that lost him the crowd that expected him to be the electric blues revival man. He didn't fulfill their expectations. He did what he wanted.

Then he came out with Dirt Floor in 1998, and I saw him in 1999 at Martrys (which is a small, intimate venue--GBS played there before they were really big in Chicago). Dirt Floor is one of the rawest, most intense albums of acoustic music I had ever heard, and I wondered how it would sound live.

He had no band--it was just him with his National guitar and a board with a mic underneath. He stomped on the board for percussion and played the guitar like he was posessed. His amp went dead the second song into the set. We only live a mile or so away, so my husband drove home and got a couple of amps to lend him. Whitley was very taken aback by the gesture, and he invited us back for another show and we got to sit and chat with him for at least an hour after the show. He was a real gentleman & signed my guitar for me...I saw him perform twice after that. Each time was spectacular.

He died in 2006. He was only 45. I still miss seeing him at Martyrs every year.