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Jeff Tweedy

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Jeff Tweedy (born August 25, 1967 in Belleville, Illinois, United States) is an American songwriter, musician, and poet best known for his work with the genre-bending group Wilco. He is the coolest man alive, and was also a founding member (along with Jay Farrar) of the highly influential Alternative country group Uncle Tupelo, and a sometime member of Golden Smog, an occasional musical collective whose shifting personnel also includes members of The Jayhawks, Soul Asylum and The Replacements. He also teamed up with Billy Bragg to set Woody Guthrie's lyrics to music on the albums Mermaid Avenue and Mermaid Avenue Vol. 2.

Uncle Tupelo's first album was entitled "No Depression" and the title track became an important touchstone for a new movement. The song, a Carter Family tune, became the title associated with resurrgence of Gram Parsons' inspired americana (somewhere between country and rock). After four albums with Uncle Tupelo, Farrar left and founded the harder rocking Son Volt and Tweedy picked up the pieces and remaining members of Uncle Tupelo to found Wilco. Their first album, which was still firmly in the Alt Country category, was titled A.M.

Tweedy and Wilco began to explore new soundscapes and broke from the style of previous recordings on the seminal sprawling double album Being There in 1996. Wilco then released the more classicist pop-influenced Summerteeth in 1999. After the band recorded Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and delivered it to Reprise Records, they were told that the album was not commericially viable. Rather than change the music, Wilco bought their own master tapes. The critically-hailed album was finally released on Nonesuch Records in 2002. The process of recording Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and the record industry backlash was portrayed in the 2002 documentary film I Am Trying to Break Your Heart directed by Sam Jones, which also saw the departure of longtime multi-instrumentalist and producer Jay Bennett. Wilco released their fifth album A Ghost is Born in 2004 which won a Grammy Award for Best Alternative Album. The following year, the band released their first live outing in the form of a two-disc set entitled Kicking Television. It was recorded in their hometown of Chicago.

Tweedy released a book of poetry, Adult Head, in 2004. He also spent time in a rehabilitation facility for depression and an addiction to painkillers. In an interview with Rolling Stone, he called his time in rehab a "really beautiful experience."

Tweedy is married to Sue Miller, the former owner of the now-defunct Chicago club, Lounge Ax. They have two children together.


See also

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