Personnel: Chris Whitley (vocals, guitar, bottleneck guitar, National guitar); Chris Whitley (accordion); Jeff Lang (vocals, guitar, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, slide guitar, lap steel guitar, National guitar, fretless guitar, fretless banjo, loops, sampler, background vocals); Grant Cummerford (bass instrument, upright bass, electric bass); Ashley Davies (drums, percussion).
Audio Mixers: Jeff Lang ; Mick Wordley.
Recording information: Adelphia, Melbourne, Australia (04/2005); Sydney, New South Wales, Australia (04/2005).
Photographer: Mick Wordley.
Arrangers: Chris Whitley; Jeff Lang .
DISLOCATION BLUES was recorded in Australia in 2005 by American blues-rock singer and guitarist Chris Whitley and Australian singer-songwriter Jeff Lang. It was Whitley's last recording session before his death from cancer later that year. Although never officially completed, the songs on DISLOCATION BLUES are no mere demos. With a live-in-the-studio immediacy that works in favor of the tunes' ragged charms, these 13 songs are uniformly impressive. Blues standards like "Stagger Lee," a pair of Bob Dylan covers ("When I Paint My Masterpiece" and "Changing of the Guard"), and a large handful of Whitley originals ("Velocity Girl," for one) combine to create an intimate portrait of two kindred spirits working closely together, unknowingly for the last time.
Professional Reviews
Dirty Linen (p.79) - "[T]hese two talented musicians found a lot of common ground and forged some new, exotic territory in their short but remarkable collaboration."
Living Blues (p.64) - "[The playlist] has a stark and desolate air....There's some powerful music here..."
No Depression (p.81) - "Whitley and young Australian blues revisionist Jeff Lang team up for a back-to-basics, howl-and-grind, dusk-till-dawn inquiry into what the master knows about the blues and what the student is willing to learn."
