MEET WILLIAM ELLIOTT WHITMORE

A few weeks ago, I was knocked out by William Elliott Whitmore, an artist I hadn't heard of before. He was opening for Chris Cornell at the Wellmont Theater in Montclair, New Jersey.  I'd never heard of him, so I checked him out online the week of the show and found this video of him performing "Hell Or High Water." That's all I needed to know to get me to get to the Wellmont early enough to catch him, and I'm glad I did. Like Cornell, he played a solo show, and he did really well - odds are that most people didn't know who he was, and by the end of the show, everyone in the theater was paying attention.

He is a solo acoustic badass.  If I had to guess, his influences are Cash, Waits and Springsteen.  As soon as his set ended (I felt it ended too soon, a rarity among opening acts, especially ones that I'm not familiar with) I went downstairs to buy his new album.  I wasn't surprised to see that he was on Anti- Records, the same label that Waits is on, as well as Mavis Staples and Nick Cave. Anti- is one of the best labels out there, but most of their artists are a lot more well known than this guy. But good on them for taking a chance, he deserves it. Anyway, I picked up his most recent album, Animals In The Dark, and I definitely recommend it highly. His next record, Field Songs, comes out July 12, and you can hear the first song, "Everything Gets Gone," here. Meanwhile, he has lots of older records that I have to catch up on.  (PS I got the above photo from WEW's website)