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Chris Knight
Sometimes, the truth hurts. Maybe th at's
because truth is a commitment, one that can demand a
soul-baring complicity from whoever it's shared with.
The truth also illuminates, often to some pretty dark
places that most are hesitant to go. For Chris Knight,
the truth is the only sound he knows.
Knight is a master storyteller whose songs stand their ground with dark
humor, visceral focus, and a stark, stunning honesty
that commands collusion. It's a rare quality that made
his self-titled debut album one of the most acclaimed
releases of 1998, and it's a singular power that sealed
his reputation as one of the most startling new artists
of the past decade. But nothing can prepare the
listener for the unblinking truths Knight now reveals.
Chris Knight was born and raised in Slaughters,
Kentucky, a tough coal mining town of 200 people where
either generations or hell could both be easily raised,
and where Knight lives to this day in a trailer on 40
acres of good wooded land. As a boy, he was exposed to
country and rock music on Johnny Cash's TV show, the
car radio on road trips to see relatives and his Aunt
Vicky Lou Blue's record collection. When Chris was 15,
he came home from school to discover a guitar sitting
on the couch. "My oldest brother bought it, but he was
working second shift at the mine," he remembers. "That
left me alone with his guitar and a chord book, so I
sat there learning chords all night, every night."
Before long, Chris had learned 50 of John Prine's songs
and soon begun writing his own. In 1989, Knight
graduated from Western Kentucky University and became a
strip-mine inspector for the state, all the while
continuing to write songs about the people he knew and
the things he saw. "I could be digging ditches or
cutting tobacco," Knight now says, "but if I didn't
think I could've made a living with my music, I
wouldn't have gone to Nashville."
Knight first drove the two hours from Slaughters to
Nashville in 1991 with a guitar case full of
tough-skinned songs and a heart full of clear-headed
conviction. "I didn't have those standard dreams of
becoming a 'singing sensation,'" he remembers. "I just
wanted to write. I knew I had a different take on
things and that I wasn't going to easily get songs cut,
but I only knew how to write how I wrote." One night in
1992, Chris performed at an 'Open Mike' night at the
Bluebird Cafe' to a wowed crowd that included Frank
Liddel, a music publishing executive who had worked
with such cutting-edge songwriters as Kim Richey, Al
Anderson and Jim Lauderdale. Liddel encouraged Chris to
keep returning to Nashville and ultimately offered him
a publishing deal with Bluewater Music. But Knight's
plan for a life of writing was soon to change. "Frank
told me that I had to record my songs myself," Chris
says. "I could play a little guitar and I could sing
some, and I finally saw that it was something that I
needed to do." When Liddel took an A&R job with Decca
Records, he quickly signed Chris as an artist and
co-produced his 1998 self-titled debut album.
Reaction to the record was immediate, with writers
nationwide comparing Chris to everyone from Prine and
Steve Earle to Neil Young and Nebraska-era Bruce
Springsteen. "In the '90s, mainstream country has lost
its rural roots," Rob Tannenbaum wrote in The New York
Times. "Most songs might as well be set in mall food
courts. But Mr. Knight seems like the last of a dying
breed - a hard-nosed iconoclast, a taciturn loner who
hunts on his own land, a grownup Huck Finn with an
acoustic guitar, as well as a college degree. CHRIS
KNIGHT is the most striking, confident debut to come
out of Nashville in years."
And while country radio often seemed unsettled by such
gritty singles from the album as "It Ain't Easy Being
Me," "Framed" and "Love and .45," AAA and other
alternative formats enthusiastically embraced the debut
album, which stayed at #1 on the Americana chart for a
record-setting 7 weeks. Chris began touring, playing
solo club gigs and opening packed clubs for artists
like Robert Earl Keen and Alison Krauss. But it was a
series of theater and arena dates as the opener for
Lynyrd Skynyrd that became his most remarkable proving
ground. Night after night, Knight and his accompanist
took the stage with nothing but two acoustic guitars as
thousands of beer-fueled fans screamed for "Freebird."
And night after night, Chris and his songs stunned the
crowds into silence. "It was really gratifying," he now
says of those notorious Skynyrd gigs. "You just get out
there and do what you do. And if you can get them to
quiet down and pay attention, it validates everything."
Today, Knight finds himself both surprised and
flattered that commercially popular country stars like
John Anderson, Randy Travis and Montgomery Gentry are
clamoring to cover his songs. At the same time, Chris
makes no apologies for the straight-forward, often
disturbing stories he shares on A PRETTY GOOD GUY. "I
thought, 'Man, some people might not be able to handle
this,'" Chris admits. "It hits hard sometimes, and I
suppose that some people don't want to get hit at all.
But I can't sing a song that I'm not feeling. And I
couldn't imagine it any other way."
And while the truth sometimes hurts, it's also been
said that the truth can set you free. And if you're
willing to not back down from the dark places, you
might even begin to see the light. For Chris Knight,
that freedom is the only feeling he knows. And on A
PRETTY GOOD GUY, those truths will be the only sound
you'll feel. - Picture Courtesy of
ChrisKnight.net
and biography from
Pressnetwork.com
Chris Knight is a perfect example of a modern day
ballad writer. His songs and albums contain several
references to the supernatural and often include bleak
and justified deaths and murders. We saw him at Texas
Music Revolution Seven and were impressed live, just as
we are impressed with each of his albums. Chris Knight
has an endearing black irony that we love here at
SlackerCountry.com.
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