Mark Lanegan: The man Kurt Cobain said had “the greatest voice”
Few musical movements produced such a high concentration of musical forces as grunge. It’s not outrageous to posit that something especially groovy must have happened in Washington state in the 1960s when most of the Seattle scene’s influential innovators were born. Of course, the ultimate champion from this celebrated set was Nirvana leader Kurt Cobain. When it came to the contemporaries he liked, he would be quick to assert their brilliance.
One of the most outspoken figures rock has ever seen, Cobain was famously weary of the music of his peers in Pearl Jam. Appearing on MTV in the early 1990s, he revealed that while he had never fought with the frontman of the former, Eddie Vedder, he had “always hated his band”. He would later tear into both Pearl Jam and Alice Chains when speaking to Flipside in 1992, decrying them for being part of “the hairspray/cockrock scene for years.”
However, when it came to those he respected artistically and personally, Kurt Cobain would go above and beyond to support their work and praise their efforts when speaking in the media. One man whose music he was a particularly great fan of was Mark Lanegan, the whiskey-voiced crooner who fronted influential Washington grunge pioneers Screaming Trees.
The pair were such kindred spirits that, in 1989, when both made inroads as future rock icons, they linked up to form The Jury, a shortlived covers band that only had two studio sessions before calling it quits. Significantly, though, this would open Lanegan up to his lauded solo career. He once recalled: “We told Sub Pop that it probably wasn’t going to happen, and that’s when they suggested to me that I make a solo record”.
Lanegan then recorded his debut solo album, The Winding Sheet, in 1989. It was released in May of the following year. To bring it to life, it was only right that he enlisted his friends from Nirvana, Cobain and Krist Novoselic. On the song, ‘Down in the Dark’, Cobain provides vocals, and more importantly, on the cover of Leadbelly’s ‘Where Did You Sleep Last Night’, the Nirvana leader plays guitar and Novoselic bass. This experience would be a transformative one for all involved, with it having such an impact on Nirvana that they would look to the record for inspiration for their iconic 1993 MTV Unplugged performance, which featured a cover of Leadbelly’s classic.
Since then, the surviving Nirvana members have showered immense praise upon Lanegan’s debut solo effort, with drummer Dave Grohl even calling it the best record ever. However, regarding his friend and inspiration, the late Kurt Cobain would provide perhaps the most tremendous praise for Lanegan when speaking to SPIN in 1993. To him, there was no vocalist better than the Screaming Trees man. He simply told the publication: “He has the greatest voice.”
Listen to The Winding Sheet below.
