Lou Whitney, R.I.P.

Lou Whitney, 72, a music producer based in Springfield, Missouri, whose mentoring and influence on other musicians far exceeded his fame as a bassist with The Morells and The Skeletons, died of cancer Tuesday, reported the Springfield News-Leader.

Before delving into an amazing career, here’s Whitney with his band, The Morells, immortalizing long-gone Route 66 landmark Red’s Giant Hamburg in a song and video, circa 1982:

KCUR in Kansas City provided some details on Whitney’s impressive producing resume at his Springfield studio:

Whitney also engineered records by national artists such as Dave Alvin, Jonathan Richman, Exene Cervenka, the Bel Airs, and the Ozark Mountain Daredevils.

“Lou made you feel right at home in the studio,” Cervenka tells KCUR. “He brought so much positive energy to recording. He was extremely witty, very wise, and a great musician to boot. I will always appreciate how much he cared and how encouraging he was. Lou was one of a kind.”

But while Whitney’s technical skills were clearly in demand, it was his behind-the-soundboard philosophizing that drew generations of area musicians to his Springfield studio.

“Anybody who was playing roots-based music, it was a rite of passage to go spend some time in Springfield with Lou,” Wickham says. “He really cares about the recording and works very hard, but the whole experience of being in Springfield with him is what drew people to keep going back there.” […]

Ladesich’s favorite Whitney story: During the monotonous down time when Pendergast was recording its first album, Ladesich was hanging out in the front room reading rock magazines. He picked up an issue of Q Magazine dedicated to the 100 greatest rock photos of all time. The number-one greatest photo, according to Q, was the iconic cover of The Clash’s London Calling.

“Lou says, ‘Funny story about that: (The Morells guitarist) Donny Thompson got pushed out of the way so the photographer could get that shot.’ The Morells were in New York and had been at that Clash show. There was always something like that with Lou. He had his fingerprints on a lot of things you didn’t know he had his fingerprints on.”

Other bands he worked with were The Bottle Rockets, Wilco, Robbie Fulks, The Del-Lords, Eric “Roscoe” Ambel, Jay Farrar, Syd Straw, Blue Mountain, Rex Hobart, Dallas Wayne, Domino Kings and many others.

Longtime Route 66 fan Dave Hoekstra met Whitney and posted some memories after the announcement of his death:

Lou was rugged Americana before Americana got gussied up. Next fall’s Americana awards in Nashville needs to find a way to honor Lou. Like thousands of others who encountered Lou, I never grew tired of hearing his stories. Even the same story several times. Lou was the only guy I know who liked to borrow from Lil’ Abner when he talked about his adopted home town: “Springfield is more like it was the last time you were here than it is now.” […]

Lou did not want a funeral. “And NO band jam memorial,” his long time friend and drummer Bobby Lloyd Hicks wrote in an Oct. 2 e-mail. Lou did request that his body be donated to science. Transportation costs for a Springfield funeral home to take Lou’s remains to Washington University in St. Louis were $1,200. A “Send Lou to Camp” GoFundMe campaign raised $2,525 in one day. The extra money goes to Lou’s wife and family.

For about 10 years, I had a regular part-time gig writing music for a newspaper in northern Illinois. I learned pretty quickly that a CD produced by Lou Whitney was probably going to be a good one.

I also learned he admired all types of music if it was good. He once recorded an album of old-fashioned hymns sung by a congregation at a rural Missouri church. He didn’t see those old hymns or the singing of them as quaint — he really loved that music, and was afraid it was disappearing from churches.

The Chicago Sun-Times passed along a good story about Whitney and his later band and why he stayed in southwest Missouri:

In 2004, the Skeletons were hired to back up rock pioneer Bo Diddley at FitzGerald’s, an evening packed with celebrities like John Cusack, with blues queen Koko Taylor sitting on the side of the stage. Diddley arrived only a few hours before the show and ran through a few songs with the band in a quick rehearsal. Proving their musical dexterity, the band ended up receiving as much raves as the legend himself. “I thought it would be perfect and it was,” says FitzGerald. “They just killed it.” […]

In an interview with Tape Op magazine last year, Whitney explained why he never left Springfield and committed his life to local talent.

“Local bands are great. I’ve had a couple chances to move, as well as an offer to go up to New York and re-settle in the Brooklyn area with some people who did pretty well. But I passed and I stayed here. Most of the people who come in here realize that it’s very likely that this is the most important musical event they’ve ever done in their life. They’re going to record. If you take that cavalierly, you’re not doing anybody any justice. You can be confident in your skills, but my goal is to send everybody down the road, taking their first recording experience as the benchmark for the rest of the work they do,” he said.

“They’ll remember this bald-headed guy in Springfield.”