Jeff Tweedy

In a book due out this fall, World With a Song, Jeff Tweedy dissects 50 tracks that have inspired him: the Replacements, Mavis Staples, the Velvet Underground, Joni Mitchell, Otis Redding, Dolly Parton and Billie Eilish. An eclectic set of declared influences, perhaps to be expected from Wilco’s frontman, who as a teen was simultaneously into country and The Ramones. But make no mistake: over his more than 35 years’ songwriting and making music, few artists have been as significant as Jeff Tweedy. It’s easy to forget amid the wildly successful Wilco years how important Tweedy was alongside Jay Farrar in Uncle Tupelo, essentially pioneering the alt-country genre. Then he brought his raspy, nasal yet utterly impassioned voice and vividly evocative songcraft to a new Chicago act. It would push so many boundaries of modern rock that Wilco’s most desert-island-worthy album, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, led Tweedy and band to get dropped from their label (in a historic bit of record executive doofusdom).

His songs outside of Wilco – especially those that came out during the pandemic – have a reserved, mellow feel to them, but thick with emotional clarity on human connection in a time when that was so lacking. (In fact, it was then that he brought his twentysomething sons into his solo act, Spencer on drums and Sammy on vocals.) Comparing it to somebody else’s work is a fool’s errand, because what can be a richer compliment to an artist than saying their work is reminiscent of Jeff Tweedy’s?