Who is Jeffrey Scot Tweedy? The entertainment and music world knows as Jeff Tweedy
, he is an American songwriter,
musician and leader of the band
Wilco. Tweedy joined
rockabilly band The Plebes with high school friend
Jay Farrar in the early 1980s, but Tweedy's musical interests caused one of Farrar's brothers to quit. The Plebes changed their name to The Primitives in 1984, and subsequently to
Uncle Tupelo. Uncle Tupelo garnered enough support to earn a record deal and to tour nationally. After releasing four albums, the band broke up in 1994 because of conflicts between Tweedy and Farrar.
In 1994, Tweedy formed
Wilco with
John Stirratt,
Max Johnston, and
Ken Coomer. Wilco has released eight albums and found commercial success with their albums
Yankee Hotel Foxtrot,
A Ghost Is Born,
Sky Blue Sky and
Wilco (The Album). The band also released two collaboration albums with
Billy Bragg and one with
The Minus 5. Jeff Tweedy has been the recipient of two
Grammy Awards, including Best Alternative Album for
A Ghost Is Born. Tweedy has also participated in a number of side groups including
Golden Smog and
Loose Fur, has released a book of poems, and has released a DVD of solo performances. He was originally influenced by punk and country music, but has recently reflected more experimental themes in his music.
Tweedy has been afflicted with
migraine headaches since childhood. Treatment for the migraines led to a dependency on
painkillers, for which he underwent successful rehab in 2004. Tweedy also has been open about the fact that he suffers from
clinical depression and
panic attacks.
Early life
Jeff Tweedy was born in
Belleville,
Illinois on August 25, 1967 as the fourth child of Bob and Jo Ann Tweedy. Bob Tweedy worked at
Alton & Southern Railroad in
East St. Louis while Jo Ann was a
kitchen designer. Jo Ann bought Tweedy his first guitar at age six, although he did not begin to play it seriously until he was eight. In 1981, when Tweedy was fourteen years old, he befriended
Jay Farrar in an English class at Belleville Township High School West. All of the members of Farrar's family enjoyed playing music, causing Farrar to already have knowledge of the musical elements of rock and roll. By this time, Tweedy was a fan of
The Ramones and
country music while Farrar enjoyed
The Sex Pistols.
Farrar was in a band called The Plebes with his brothers Wade and Dade, which Tweedy joined in order to qualify for a battle of the bands competition. Tweedy pushed The Plebes away from the
rockabilly music that they had been playing, which caused Dade Farrar to leave the band. The band renamed themselves The Primitives in 1984, taking their name from a song by
garage rock band
The Groupies. Wade Farrar sang lead vocals and played harmonica, Jay Farrar played guitar, Tweedy played bass guitar, and
Mike Heidorn played drums. In late 1986, the band decided to change their name to Uncle Tupelo, because a more popular British band was also using the name "
The Primitives". The Primitives went on hiatus in 1986 after Wade Farrar left the band to finish his engineering degree at Southern Illinois University. While waiting for Wade to return from campus, Jay, Tweedy, and Heidorn formed Uncle Tupelo.
Uncle Tupelo (1987-1994)
At his parents' request, Jeff Tweedy enrolled at several universities, but dropped out of them so that he could
concentrate on Uncle Tupelo. While
moonlighting as a
record store clerk at Euclid Records in St. Louis, Tweedy met Tony Margherita. After Margherita saw the band perform at an
acoustic concert in 1988, he decided to become the band's manager. The band began playing regular shows at Cicero's basement bar in the
Delmar Loop near
Washington University with other bands
playing in
a similar style.
Uncle Tupelo recorded a ten-track demo tape entitled
Not Forever, Just For Now in 1989, attracting the attention of
Giant/Rockville Records. The independent label signed the band, and Uncle Tupelo's
first album,
No Depression, was released the next year. The
title song, originally
performed by the
Carter Family, became strongly associated with the
alternative country scene, and became the name of an influential
alternative country periodical.
During times when Uncle Tupelo was not touring, Tweedy and Farrar played as Coffee Creek, a short-lived cover band with
The Bottle Rockets'
Brian Henneman and Mark Ortmann. Around this time, Tweedy began developing problems with alcohol abuse, leading to tensions between
Tweedy and Farrar. While he never refused to play a gig, Tweedy was forced to sit out in place of Henneman at some performances. Tweedy quit drinking entirely
after meeting future wife Sue Miller,
although he replaced this habit with smoking
marijuana. After releasing
Still Feel Gone, the band formed a friendship with
Peter Buck of
R.E.M., who produced their third album
March 16–20, 1992 for free. Uncle Tupelo left the Rockville label in favor of
Sire Records (
Warner) later in 1992 because Rockville refused to pay the band any royalties for their albums. After the signing,
Max Johnston and
John Stirratt joined the band as Mike Heidorn was replaced by Bill Belzer who was later replaced by
Ken Coomer.The five-piece band recorded
Anodyne, which sold over 150,000 copies and debuted at number 18 on the
Billboard Heatseekers chart, but was the last album Uncle Tupelo released.
Breakup
In January 1994, Farrar called Tony Margherita to tell him that the band was breaking up, saying that he was not having any fun in the band anymore and was not getting along with Tweedy. Tweedy was enraged that Farrar decided to break up the band without notifying him, and this led to a series of harsh verbal exchanges. Farrar and Tweedy agreed to a final Uncle Tupelo tour, but the concerts were marred by the two not participating in each other's songs. The band decided to play Tweedy's "The Long Cut" on
Late Night with Conan O'Brien, which further distanced Farrar and Tweedy. Farrar began to assemble a new band named
Son Volt with Mike Heidorn, bassist Jim Boquist, and his brother Dave Boquist. At the same time, Jeff Tweedy formed
Wilco with Stirratt, Johnston, and Coomer.
Wilco (1995-present)
Wilco was signed to
Reprise Records (Warner) and began recording
A.M. almost as soon as the band was formed. After recording, Tweedy was introduced to
Jay Bennett, who then joined the band. Also during this time, Tweedy quit smoking marijuana after a particularly bad experience with some
cannabis brownies.
A.M. did not fare as well commercially in comparison to Son Volt's first album, only reaching number 27 on the Heatseekers chart while Son Volt's debut
Trace hit the
Billboard 200.
Dan Murphy of
Soul Asylum invited Tweedy to join him in a supergroup named
Golden Smog with
Gary Louris and Marc Perlman of the
Jayhawks, Kraig Johnson of Run Westy Run, and Noah Levy of
The Honeydogs. Under the
pseudonym Scott Summit, Tweedy released
Down by the Old Mainstream with Golden Smog in 1996.
Tweedy and Wilco began to explore new styles and broke from the
style of previous recordings on the seminal sprawling double album
Being There in 1996. Tweedy did not write music for many of the songs ahead of time, and welcomed unexpected sounds into the recording. Wilco recorded nineteen songs for the double-CD album, and wanted the label to release it with a retail price comparable to a single-CD release.
Being There was a commercial success, selling 300,000 copies and peaking in the top half of the
Billboard 200. Reprise records invested $100,000 in the single "Outta Mind (Outtasite)",
but received little radio exposure. While on tour, Tweedy began to spend time reading books by
William H. Gass,
Henry Miller, and
John Fante. As he read their books, Tweedy decided to place more of an emphasis on writing. Representatives in the A&R department of Reprise wanted a radio single from
Summerteeth, and Wilco reluctantly agreed to a re-working of "
Can't Stand It".
The single was a top five hit on
adult album alternative radio stations, but failed to cross over to a larger audience.
Before the release of
Summerteeth, the daughter of the late folk legend Woody Guthrie contacted
folk rock singer
Billy Bragg, who in turn contacted Tweedy about recording an album of unreleased
Woody Guthrie songs. Tweedy was indifferent to the idea of working with Bragg, but Jay Bennett's enthusiasm about the idea convinced Tweedy to get the band involved in the project. As a result of Tweedy's feelings on the political nature of some of the lyrics, Bragg recorded mostly political songs while Wilco recorded more neutral songs. Almost all of the songs that appeared on
Mermaid Avenue and
Mermaid Avenue Vol. II were recorded over a six day period in December 1997. The first
Mermaid Avenue album and a second Golden Smog album (
Weird Tales) were released in 1998,
Summerteeth was released in early 1999, and
Mermaid Avenue Vol. II was released in 2000. Tweedy received his first Grammy nomination when
Mermaid Avenue was nominated for
Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Album in 1999.
Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
Jeff Tweedy was invited to play at Chicago's Noise Pop festival, and was told that he could collaborate with a musician of his choosing. Tweedy chose
Jim O'Rourke based on his fascination with O'Rourke's
Bad Timing album. O'Rourke offered to bring drummer
Glenn Kotche to the festival, and the trio formed a side project named
Loose Fur. The other band members of Wilco had written a number of songs for
Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, but Tweedy was unsatisfied with them because he believed that the songs did not sound like the ones he played with Loose Fur. Tweedy became such a fan of Kotche's playing style that he decided to dismiss Ken Coomer from the band in favor of Kotche. Tweedy had strong feelings about how songs should be sequenced, which clashed with Jay Bennett's focus on the songs themselves. Because Bennett was ixing the album, this led to a series of arguments about how the album should sound between songs. Tweedy asked O'Rourke to remix several songs on the album that had been mixed by Bennett, which caused tensions within the band to escalate. The album was completed in June 2001, and Tweedy was insistent that it was in its final form. Tweedy also fired Jay Bennett around this time, believing (according to Jay Bennett) that Wilco should only have one core member. The band maintains that the firing of Jay Bennett was a collective decision.
Reprise Record's parent company
Time Warner merged with
America Online in 2001, and the recording company was asked to cut costs.
Howie Klein, the CEO of Reprise Records, considered Wilco to be one of the label's core bands, but was offered a lucrative buy-out by AOL Time Warner. A&R representative Mio Vukovic was placed in charge of Wilco, and he believed that the album was not commercially viable. Vukovic called manager Tony Margherita and told him that Reprise was not interested in releasing the album, a point of view shared by the head of the A&R department, David Kahne. Kahne agreed to release Wilco from Reprise records under the condition that Wilco got to keep all legal entitlements to the
Yankee Hotel 
Foxtrot album. After an article in the
Chicago Tribune publicly described these managerial practices, CEO Gary Briggs quit. Shortly after leaving the label, Briggs remarked:
| “ | It [dropping Wilco from the label] should never have happened. One of the most embarrassing moments in my career at Warner Brothers was the day they let Wilco go. It broke my heart, and it told me that I no longer have a home there. | ” |
Yankee Hotel Foxtrot was originally scheduled to be released on Reprise on
September 11, 2001, prior to the band's departure from Reprise. Seven days later, Tweedy decided that he would stream the entirety of
Yankee Hotel Foxtrot on Wilco's official website. Over thirty record labels offered to release
Yankee Hotel Foxtrot after the departure from Reprise was official. One of the thirty was Warner Brothers affiliate
Nonesuch Records, who signed Wilco in November 2001. AOL Time Warner paid Wilco to make the album on Reprise, gave them the record for free, and then bought it back on the Nonesuch label. The album was released on April 23, 2002 to significant critical acclaim, including being named the best album of the year by
The Village Voice.The album became the biggest hit of Jeff Tweedy's career and was certified gold by the
Recording Industry Association of America for selling over 500,000 copies.
A Ghost Is Born and side projects
Scott McCaughey contacted Tweedy about recording an album together for a
The Minus 5 release. They scheduled a meeting for September 11, 2001, but were reluctant to enter the recording studio after the
terrorist attacks. At night, McCaughey and Tweedy decided to begin recording songs as a way to calm down. A few more tracks were later added to the album with the rest of Wilco, and it was released with the name
Down with Wilco in 2003.
In November 2003, Wilco began recording a fifth studio album. Unlike their previous albums, all of the
songs were originally performed in the studio and then later adapted for playing at concerts. Wilco released
A Ghost Is Born on June 22, 2004, and it attained a top ten peak on the
Billboard 200. The album was awarded with Grammy Awards for
Best Alternative Music Album and
Best Recording Package in 2005. A few weeks before the album's release, Tweedy released a book of forty-three poems entitled
Adult 
Head on Zoo Press. The following year, the band released their first live album, a two-disc set entitled
Kicking Television: Live in Chicago, recorded at
The Vic Theater. Wilco recorded twelve tracks for a sixth studio album entitled
Sky Blue 
Sky, which was released on May 15, 2007.
Sky Blue Sky debuted at number four on the
Billboard 200, the band's highest debut yet. It sold over 87,000 copies in its first week of release.
Jeff Tweedy has performed several solo tours, on which he typically plays acoustic music. He also does The Song Simple Twist of Fate on the Soundtrack to I'm Not There. On October 24, 2006 Nonesuch Records released
Sunken Treasure: Live in the Pacific Northwest, a live DVD by Tweedy. The disc includes performances and conversations gathered over five nights on Tweedy’s February 2006 solo acoustic tour, with footage from concerts at Seattle’s Moore Theater, Portland’s
Crystal Ballroom, Eugene’s McDonald Theatre, Arcata’s Humboldt State University, and
The Fillmore in San Francisco. The DVD was directed by Christoph Green and
Fugazi’s Brendan Canty, the creators of the documentary series
Burn to Shine.
Musical style
Jeff Tweedy's musical style has varied over his music career. Tweedy's vocal style is considered nasal, emotional, and scratchy, and has been compared to that of
Neil Young. His first exposure to music was through
gramophone records that his siblings left behind when they attended college, and he particularly liked
The Beatles'
White Album. Tweedy would frequently read issues of magazines such as
Rolling Stone, and began to purchase
punk rock albums such as
The Clash's
London Calling and
X's
Wild Gift. Belleville crowds did not respond well to punk music, so while Tweedy was a member of The Primitives they played covers of
country songs at much faster tempos. When Uncle Tupelo formed, the band began composing its own songs influenced by
Jason & the Scorchers and
The Minutemen. Wilco's first album shared many musical similarities with the four previous Uncle Tupelo albums, but on
Being There, Tweedy began introducing more experimental themes
into his music. He claims that he wanted to rebel against the belief spread by the
No Depression magazine that Wilco was primarily a country band. One of the most influential albums for Tweedy was
Bad Timing by Jim O'Rourke, which helped to inspire
Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and
A Ghost Is Born. Tweedy uses a 1957 Gibson J-45, as well as Fender Jazzmasters, Telecasters and Gibson SGs. He also has been known to use a Breedlove 000.
Personal life
Tweedy has been prone to chronic
migraines throughout his entire life, forcing him to miss forty days of elementary school in one year. These chronic migraines caused Tweedy to become dependent on painkillers. While he attempted to regulate his use of painkillers, he was never able to stop their use for more than five weeks. Tweedy attributes this to comorbidity with
major depressive disorder and severe
panic attacks. In 2004, he entered a
dual diagnosis rehabilitation clinic in order to receive treatment for an addiction to prescription
painkillers. Tweedy quit
smoking the next year; John Stirratt claimed afterward that this significantly improved the focus of the band.
Tweedy is married to former talent booking agent Sue Miller.
Tweedy first met Miller when he was trying to get Uncle Tupelo booked at
Cubby Bear, where Miller worked. Miller opened a club in Chicago named
Lounge Ax in 1989, and booked Uncle Tupelo for sixteen shows over four years. Miller and Tweedy began dating in 1991 and they were married on August 9, 1995. The Tweedys have
two children:
Spencer Tweedy (born December 16, 1995) and Sam Tweedy (born December 22, 1999). Spencer has been the drummer for pre-teen rock band
The Blisters, not to be confused with Chicago powerpop band
The Blissters, since December 2003. has also recently formed a new band called
Tully Monster with friends Hayden Holbert and Henry Mosher. They go to a Montessori School in Chicago,IL. The band has played major events such as
Lollapalooza, which Jeff and Wilco headlined, and also at the opening of
Millennium Park in Chicago. On December 16, 2008 Spencer Tweedy joined Wilco on stage at Madison Square Garden to play drums on their song "The Late Greats," while opening for Neil Young. Before the song, the entire crowd sang Happy Birthday to Spencer Tweedy, as it was his 13th birthday.
In early May 2009, former Wilco member
Jay Bennett sued Tweedy for breach of contract. Bennett died later that month of an apparent accidental overdose of the painkiller
fentanyl.
Selected discography
Uncle Tupelo
Wilco
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Kendrick "caught the [acting] bug" at the age of 10, when her parents would let her and her brother catch a bus from Portland, Maine, to New York City so that she could attend auditions.[1] Kendrick's first acting role was as Dinah in the Broadway musical High Society in August 1998 when she was twelve years old, a performance for which she earned Theatre World Award, Drama Desk Award, and Tony Award nominations,[2] making her the third-youngest Tony Award nominee.[3]
In late 2007, she auditioned for the role of Jessica Stanley in Twilight, a 2008 film adapted from the first book of the novel series by Stephenie Meyer.[5] She had intended to do a mix-and-match audition with various actors, but was too ill and had to leave; she was, however, brought in for a later session where she was given the role.[1] Screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg said that the characters Jessica Stanley and Lauren Mallory from the book were combined to create the role.[6] Kendrick reprised her role as Jessica in the Twilight sequel, New Moon.[7]
Kendrick was born August 9, 1985 in Portland, Maine, the daughter of Janice, an accountant, and William Kendrick, a history teacher.[16] Kendrick and her older brother, actor Michael Cooke Kendrick, who appeared in the 2000 film Looking for an Echo, attended Deering High School in Portland.[17] She now attends Bates College in Maine. She lists Parker Posey, Molly Shannon and Amy Poehler as her inspirations.[2]
