Live at Martyrs'

1	Dirt Floor 2:11
2	Long Way Around 4:01
3	Firefighter 2:27
4	God Thing 2:32
5	Poison Girl 3:13
6	New Machine 3:03
7	Living With The Law 3:43
8	WPL 2:52
9	The Model 3:01
10	Home Is Where You Get Across 3:22
11	From One Island to Another 2:53
12	Serve You 3:21
13	Narcotic Prayer 3:51
14	Big Sky Country/Gasket 6:53

Barnes & Noble

The introspective side that Chris Whitley displayed on the lovely, solo acoustic outing DIRT FLOOR recedes and the tortured singer-songwriter emerges full-blown on LIVE AT MARTYRS, a solo set recorded at the Chicago club. Armed with only his guitar or a banjo, he takes on religion as a cover-up on the angry "God Thing," strums up a hazy remedy for "Poison Girl," and reaches deep into the mythology of white-trash Texas, the state he was raised in, for "Living with the Law." But Whitely is neither working class nor a woman hater; rather, he taps into cultural stereotypes and spits them back at us as postmodern poetry. Some of the loose guitar playing, as on "Long Way Around" and "WPL," sounds as if comes out of the grunge movement via a bordello in Algeria, while the banjo-driven "The Model" is modern folk. A version of "Big Sky Country" finds Whitley singing most of the lyrics a capella and then seguing with his guitar into "Gasket," recalling the blues-fueled psychedelic rage of his DIN OF ECSTACY. LIVE AT MARTYRS is neither a blues, pop, rock, nor folk album. It is rather a vivid illustration of a creative being looking to popular music as a means of expression. And his search is so desperate that trying to pin Whitely down to anything would be to miss the point of his journey Roberta Penn

All Music Guide

Just a man and his guitar: that's all Live at Martyrs' is. Yet it is perhaps the best way to hear Chris Whitley, separated from the studio trappings that had a tendency to obscure and hinder his otherwise gutsy folk-blues on previous recordings, and planted precisely in the element that helped earn him his name in singer/songwriter and critical circles. That is part of what makes the album such a welcome addition to the cult musician's mixed catalog. Recorded in Chicago over a few nights in 1999, Live captures all the things that make Whitley's music so enticing: heated passion, raw intensity, and an indescribable urge toward both the sacred and profane. It is, in fact, a logical extension from both his outstanding debut album and his previous effort, Dirt Floor, the two most lauded releases of his career. Stripped of commercial production and all other confusing affectations, the recording allows his wonderful songs and torrid delivery to take center stage. It might be instructive to note that half the set list comes from the first two studio albums, with only three deriving from the third and fourth albums. His second and third albums received only lukewarm reviews, but the songs from those efforts are given revelatory readings that far surpass the original incarnations, almost sounding like entirely new songs. The two new songs that are included prove strong additions to Whitley's songbook, while his cover of Kraftwerk's "The Model" is virtually unrecognizable and like nothing else in his canon. His guitar picking on the song is almost banjo style, and he sings with a smooth croon instead of his normal cavorting vocals. In general, though, even as spare as the recording is, it is highly atmospheric. Whitley's electrified guitar can sound like warped metal ("Dirt Floor") or like sepia-toned, foot-stomping country-blues, and on the new "Home Is Where You Get Across" his playing is strikingly close to the phenomenal picking skills of Leo Kottke. Much of the music is blues-based, and certain songs still roll around in the mud and get rather grungy, but surprisingly, in this naked setting, the songs take on a folk-like dimension (albeit overdriven folk), with progressive songwriters from the '60s such as Tim Hardin and Tim Buckley (or, for a more contemporary comparison, Jeff Buckley) frequently springing to mind. It is soulful stuff and gets at the essence of what makes Chris Whitley such a thrilling musician when he is "on": electrifying instrumental abilities and shadowy, dark-edge story-songs that dig into your skin and unravel you layer by layer. Although it is top-heavy on the first two albums, Live at Martyrs' is possibly the best end-to-end effort in his early catalog. Stanton Swihart