Like a lot of people, Luke Redfield couldn't get Vic Chesnutt off his mind on the day after Christmas in 2009. Unlike most people, though, the Minnesota songwriter put his thoughts to good use.
"I had the idea right away, and it just seemed like the right thing to do," Redfield said of putting together a tribute album to the late, cult-revered Georgia song man, who committed suicide that Christmas Day.
Ideas are one thing. Pulling them off is what counts. The young Duluth-reared songwriter managed to get a cross-section of Twin Cities musicmakers to come together and make "Minnesota Remembers Vic Chesnutt," a feat that could only happen in a music scene that's both community-oriented and song-driven.
Granted, charity albums pop up all the time, like the "Minnesota Beatle Project," which will be revived in a third installment next month. Chesnutt, however, was clearly no Beatles. He was obscure professionally and difficult lyrically. Redfield somehow found 17 acts willing to take the time to record Vic's challenging songs without much notice, and get a lot of other local music professionals to pitch in.
The first album ever issued by local nonprofit Rock the Cause, the tribute features Dan Wilson, Haley Bonar, Trampled by Turtles' Dave Simonett, Charlie Parr, Ben Weaver, Andrew Broder, JoAnna James, Alpha Consumer, Redfield and a half-dozen more.
Profits will go toward two noble causes: Lifeworks, serving people with disabilities (Chesnutt was left wheelchair-bound by a car accident at age 18), and the musicians health-care organization Sweet Relief, which put out a Chesnutt tribute album in 1996 featuring Soul Asylum, R.E.M., Smashing Pumpkins and even Madonna.
It was R.E.M.'s Michael Stipe who "discovered" Chesnutt in the late '80s. Soul Asylum's members were among the Minnesota music scenesters who befriended him, along with Bob Mould (who frequently had Vic open his acoustic tours), the Golden Smog crew (who backed him at South by Southwest in 1996) and Replacements manager Peter Jesperson (who went on to issue his albums at New West Records). So there always seemed to be a Twin Cities soft spot for the craggy-voiced, prickly songwriter -- right up to his final local show just a month before his death.
Only one of the performers on "Minnesota Remembers" had a personal connection to Chesnutt. Ben Weaver met him a few years ago at a symposium and they later shared concert bills in Europe. Weaver told Chesnutt how their mutual friend Jesperson talked up Vic's "Mr. Reilly" as the greatest song ever written. When he got home, Weaver found a copy of Chesnutt's debut album in the mail -- featuring "Mr. Reilly" -- sent by the man himself.
