Singer, songwriter, and guitar virtuoso Chris Whitley spent eight long years trying to meld his abundant talent into a great album. After the release of his 1991 debut, Living With the Law, he appeared poised for success. Producer Daniel Lanois tempered Whitley's Texas- tinged folk blues with his own atmospheric pop, and on the wings of the single "Poison Girl," the album enjoyed critical acclaim and even some radio play.

Feeling that he'd been forced to make Living commercially viable, Whitley let his bitterness stew for four years before releasing the vitriolic and aptly titled Din of Ecstasy. A tome of Hendrix- influenced electric noise, Din was a curious follow up to Whitley's earlier success and drove off all but his most ardent fans. Whitley started to get it right on 1997's Terra Incognita, skillfully combining his roots- rock base with Din's harder edge. However, his years of silence and stylistic oscillations had taken their toll. The album didn't sell and Whitley found himself looking for a label.

At the same time, Whitley lost colleague Jeff Buckley to the murky waters of the Wolf River Marina. Sharing Buckley's penchant for sensually spiritual lyrics and obviously influenced by his vocal pyrotechnics, Whitley mourned Buckley's passing by sequestering himself in a room with his National guitar. When he emerged, he had the skeleton of Dirt Floor.

Recorded in one day at his father's barn in Vermont, Dirt Floor is nothing short of Whitley's redemption. The credits say it all: "Vocals, Guitar, Banjo and Foot Stomp by Chris Whitley." The album is a collection of nine starkly sublime tracks, and considering its lack of apparent whistles and bells, Dirt Floor is an amazingly complex album. Whitley's tales range from the bluntly visual "Wild Country," perhaps the album's finest tune, to the cryptically emotive "Accordingly;" from the quietly ferocious "Altitude" to the almost jazzy "From One Stand to Another."

If Whitley took his guitar cues from Hendrix on Din, his inspiration on Dirt Floor is the innovative, instrumental guitarist John Fahey. Like Fahey did in the sixties, Whitley transforms the traditional instruments of folk, blues and country into his own musical vision. On the killer's treatise "Ball Peen Hammer," the banjo in Whitley's hand is urgent and mean. Combining his emotional, pyscho- sexual vision, the blues' outlaw tradition, and his tinny, pleading guitar licks, Dirt Floor is a union of Nirvana and a Folkways field recording.

It's a beautiful album-- original yet traditional, simple yet complex. The songs are timeless; they sound as if they just as easily could have been penned in 1888 or 1938 as 1998, and we could still be listening to them in 2028. The one drawback of the album is its length. Its nine songs run only 27 minutes, but I've already come up with a solution: when the album ends, play it again. With each listen, Dirt Floor reveals something new.

-Neil Lieberman