The lead singer even helped design the set, asking for it to be decorated with stargazer lilies and black candles. He also invited two of his musical heroes, Cris and Curt Kirkwood of the little-known Meat Puppets. Nirvana’s appearance on the acoustic series proved something that close observers already knew: The loudest band on earth had a stunning amount of depth.Ĭobain subtly subverted the format, which usually featured acts playing stripped-down versions of their hits, by filling the set list with cover songs. Wearing a fuzzy cardigan, ratty button-down, Frightwig T-shirt, jeans, and Converse sneakers, Kurt Cobain-with help from drummer Dave Grohl, bassist Krist Novoselic, guitarist Pat Smear, and cellist Lori Goldston-orchestrated a performance that was heartfelt, funny, uncomfortable, and mesmerizing. That night, the biggest group of the decade staged one of the most hypnotically intimate rock concerts ever captured on film. On November 18, 1993, at Sony Music Studios in New York City, Nirvana took on MTV Unplugged. It was so soulful and real, it gave me the chills.The best television episode of the 1990s starred a short, blond man and his band. To me it sounded like what I imagined it would be like if I was sitting in the room with Skip James or Lightnin’ Hopkins. “One of the coolest things that ever came from hanging with Kurt was just sitting in his shed and hearing him play acoustic guitar and singing. “His version of that song is the definitive version - it blows mine away,” he said. In a 1996 interview with Rolling Stone, Lanegan said he was stunned by the Unplugged performance of the song. It’s one of the great musical moments of the Nineties, without any doubt, and it likely would never have happened without Lanegan’s connection to Cobain. 18, 1993, at their MTV Unplugged special at Sony Music Studios in New York City. They also occasionally played “Where Did You Sleep Last Night” in concert, but the most famous rendition took place on Nov. By that time, Nirvana was starting to gain national recognition. They gave up the idea pretty quickly, but their take on “Where Did You Sleep Last Night” - a traditional folk tune that Lead Belly recorded several times in the Forties - surfaced on The Winding Sheet the following year. I was used to directing Screaming Trees recording sessions … I couldn’t bear to do that in this situation, I was too awed by Kurt’s genius.” Despite being the least musically proficient member of Screaming Trees, it had become obvious to me early on that I had to be the default leader of the band, simply due to force of personality. “Neither Kurt nor I were really willing to grab the reins. “Being pals was easy but creating together turned out to be more difficult as our respect for one another turned it into an oddly unproductive exercise,” Lanegan wrote. They had a lot of fun talking about it, but actually recording it was a different matter. And then the other, ‘We should do a record of all Lead Belly covers.’ ” “‘We should do a record of this stuff,’ one of us suggested. “One afternoon at his place, we started talking about making a record,” Lanegan wrote in his 2020 memoir Sing Backwards and Weep. Cobain spent days at a time chilling with Lanegan in Olympia, Washington, and listening to old blues records they both loved. The recording session took place shortly after Nirvana wrapped their 1989 Bleach tour. Krist Novoselic is on bass, with Screaming Trees’ Mark Pickerel on drums. If that electric guitar and voice in the background sound familiar to you, that’s because it’s Kurt Cobain. The Nineties would have unfolded in imaginably different ways without his influence.įor a tiny bit of proof, check out this rendition of “Where Did You Sleep Last Night” from Lanegan’s 1990 solo debut The Winding Sheet. Starting in 1986 with their LP Clairvoyance, Lanegan and his bandmates set the stage for Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, and so much music that followed in their wake. The former Screaming Trees frontman was a towering figure in the history of grunge. The news of Mark Lanegan’s death broke early this afternoon, and it’s already sending shockwaves across the rock landscape.
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