This month’s
>Rewound
is
VIC CHESNUTT
👨🦽
James Victor Chesnutt (Born the 12th of November 1964) is an American singer-songwriter from Athens, Georgia.
An adoptee, Chesnutt was raised in Zebulon, Georgia, where he first started writing songs at the age of five. When he was 13, Chesnutt declared that he was an atheist, a position that he maintained for the rest of his life.
Injuries from a 1983 car accident left him partially paralyzed; he used a wheelchair and had limited use of his hands.
According to Vic himself he was “a quadriplegic from [his] neck down,” and although he had feeling and some movement in his body, he could not walk “functionally” and that, although he realized shortly afterward that he could still play guitar, he could only play simple chords.
Around 1985, Chesnutt moved to Athens and joined the band La-Di-Das with future member of the Dashboard Saviors Todd McBride. After leaving that group, he began performing solo on a regular basis at the 40 Watt Club; it was there that he was spotted by Michael Stipe of R.e.M.
Stipe went on to produce Chesnutt’s first two albums, Little (1990) and West of Rome (out this month, see new album releases).
Chesnutt would release 17 albums during his career, including two produced by Michael Stipe. His musical style has been described by Bryan Carroll of AllMusic as a “skewed, refracted version of Americana that is haunting, funny, poignant, and occasionally mystical, usually all at once.”
Vic died on Christmas Day 2009 from an overdose of muscle relaxants that had left him in a coma in an Athens hospital. He was 45 years old. In his final interview, which aired on National Public Radio 24 days before his death, Chesnutt said that he had “attempted suicide three or four times” [before]. It didn’t take.
According to him in the same interview, being “uninsurable” due to his quadriplegia, he was $50,000 in debt for his medical bills, and had been putting off a surgery for a year (“And, I mean, I could die only because I cannot afford to go in there again. I don’t want to die, especially just because of I don’t have enough money to go in the hospital.”).
The Canadian alt-country band Cowboy Junkies recorded an album called Demons after his death, released on January 18, 2011. A tribute to Chesnutt, it features his songs.
Conor Oberst of Bright Eyes described Chesnutt as “one of the greatest ever,” and released a cover of Chesnutt’s song “Flirted with You All My Life” in 2021.
Kristin Hersh wrote a book titled Don’t Suck, Don’t Die: Giving Up Vic Chesnutt, which was published by University of Texas Press and released on October 1, 2015.
VIC CHESNUTT
a true REWOUND
For What It's Worth 
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