Jay Bennett, 45; songwriter, singer was member of Wilco
NEW YORK - Jay Bennett, a singer and songwriter who was a former member of the rock band Wilco, died on Sunday at his home in Urbana, Ill. He was 45.
The cause is unknown. Representatives of his management company, Undertow Music Collective, said he died in his sleep. Edward Burch, a friend and collaborator, told the Chicago Sun-Times that an autopsy was being done. No information about survivors was available.
Last month, Mr. Bennett complained on his MySpace page about severe pains in his hip. He needed hip-replacement surgery, he said, but did not have proper health insurance.
A burly, dreadlocked figure with a cracking, plaintive rasp, Mr. Bennett played in the Replacements-influenced power-pop band Titanic Love Affair during the 1990s and released four solo albums. But he is best known for his role in Wilco, the Chicago band that expanded the earthy, folk-influenced sound of the alt-country genre with more abstract, experimental rock.
Mr. Bennett joined Wilco in 1994, shortly after the recording of the band’s first album, "A.M.," which was released the next year. Beginning with "Being There" in 1996, he played keyboards, guitar, and various other instruments, and gradually his role grew.
With "Summerteeth" in 1999 and "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot," released in 2002, he became a key part of the band's songwriting, often as a darker foil to the more fragile style of the lead singer, Jeff Tweedy. A perfectionist in the studio, Mr. Bennett took an active hand in the recording process.
He also played on "Mermaid Avenue," the band's Grammy-nominated 1998 project with Billy Bragg, which set unpublished lyrics by Woody Guthrie to music, as well as on its sequel, "Mermaid Avenue II," in 2000.
But as documented in "I Am Trying to Break Your Heart," a 2002 film about the recording of "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" and the band’s extended struggle with its record company, Mr. Bennett and Tweedy frequently clashed in the studio, as Mr. Bennett bristled over the band's increasingly noisy direction.
Tweedy fired Mr. Bennett from Wilco shortly before the release of "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot," which became a landmark release. Relations between the two men remained chilly.
This month Mr. Bennett sued for breach of contract, contending that he was owed royalties from his work on Wilco albums as well as money from the film. The suit has not been settled, a Wilco spokeswoman said.
In a statement yesterday, Tweedy said: "We will miss Jay as we remember him -- as a truly unique and gifted human being and one who made welcome and significant contributions to the band's songs and evolution."
Born in Rolling Meadows, a suburb of Chicago, Mr. Bennett graduated from the University of Illinois with degrees in secondary education, mathematics, and political studies. He was working in a VCR repair shop when Tweedy recruited him for Wilco.
On his most recent MySpace post, Mr. Bennett said he was hard at work on a new album, "Kicking at the Perfumed Air."
