Michael Stipe and Patti Smith pay tribute to Vic Chesnutt

REM singer Michael Stipe and singer songwriter Patti Smith have paid tribute to the late Vic Chesnutt who committed suicide this week.

In a short statement at the REM website, Stipe said, "we have lost one of our great ones".

On Christmas Day, Patti Smith said, " I flew around the room once, a line from Supernatural. He was just that. He possessed an unearthy energy and yet was humanistic with that common man in mind. He was entirely present and entirely somewhere else. A mystical somewhere else. A child and an old guy as he called himself. Before he made an album he said he was a bum. Now he is in flight bumming around the little room with his angel voice."

The Georgia-based songwriter died after spending a week in a coma after overdosing on 100 muscle relaxant pills.

Chesnutt had been confined to a wheelchair after becoming a paraplegic from a car crash when he was 18.

Vic Chesnutt released 13 albums during his career and became known when friends like REM, Garbage and Smashing Pumpkins recorded the 'Sweet Relief II: Gravity of the Situation' tribute album to him.

Chesnutt died on December 24. He was 45-years old.


Undercover.com.au