Jeffrey Scot Tweedy (born August 25, 1967) is an American musician, author, and record producer, best known as the lead vocalist and guitarist of the band Wilco. Tweedy, originally from Belleville, Illinois, began his music career in high school with his band The Plebes along with Jay Farrar, also in the band. The Plebes later became the alternative country band Uncle Tupelo. After Uncle Tupelo broke up, Tweedy formed Wilco which found critical and commercial success, most notably with Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and A Ghost Is Born. The latter received a Grammy for Best Alternative Album in 2005. During his career Tweedy has released 20 studio albums including four with Uncle Tupelo, twelve with Wilco, one with his son Spencer, a solo acoustic album, three solo studio albums, along with numerous collaborations with other musicians, most notably Mermaid Avenue with Billy Bragg.
Early life Tweedy was born in Belleville on August 25, 1967, the fourth child of Bob and JoAnn Tweedy (née Werkmeister). Bob Tweedy (died August 4, 2017) worked for Alton & Southern Railroad in East St. Louis; JoAnn was a housemaker. Tweedy grew up with three siblings, older brother Greg Tweedy (died in 2013), brother Steven Tweedy, and sister Debbie Voll. Tweedy's mother bought him his first guitar when he was six years old, although he did not begin to play it seriously until he was twelve. Apparently Tweedy told people that he knew how to play the guitar once he got his first guitar, even though he did not know how to play. When he was twelve, Tweedy was injured in a bicycle accident and was laid up for the summer. He decided to learn how to play a few chords before somebody "called him out" on the lie. On an appearance of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, he remembered attending an X concert as a youngster in St. Louis. The Replacements opened, and Paul Westerberg, their guitarist and vocalist, fell off the stage while performing. Tweedy recalls thinking "That looks like fun!" In 1981, when Tweedy was fourteen years old, he befriended Jay Farrar during an English class at Belleville Township High School West. All of the members of Farrar's family enjoyed playing music; he already knew rock and roll music very well. By that time, Tweedy was a fan of The Ramones and country music while Farrar enjoyed The Sex Pistols. Tweedy attended Belleville Area College and Southern Illinois University Edwardsville.
Career
Early music In the early 1980s, Tweedy joined The Plebes, a rockabilly band, with brothers Wade and Dade Farrar which Tweedy joined in order to qualify for a battle of the bands competition. They won. 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 Primatives 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, Farrar, Tweedy, and Heidorn formed Uncle Tupelo.
Uncle Tupelo (1987–1994)
At his parents' request, Tweedy attended several universities, but dropped out of all of them to 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 in St. Louis 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 called No Depression. 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, 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. However, after developing a dependence on marijuana, he quickly quit using it, as well. 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)
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