Former Screaming Trees and Queens of the Stone Age singer Mark Lanegan covered the Alice In Chains classic “Nutshell” in honor of Layne Staley and Mike Starr at the MoPOP Founders’ Award show. Lanegan was assisted by Maggie Bjorklund, Ryan Waters, and Ben Smith.
Lanegan also covered “Brother” with Nancy Wilson and Liv Warfield. On a night full of stellar performances by the likes of Lily Cornell Silver, the reunited Soundgarden, Metallica, and other big names, Lanegan’s performance stood out, especially due to his close personal friendship with Layne Staley.
Mark was one of the few musicians Layne stayed close with in his final years, as he completely shut out his Alice In Chains bandmates near the end, outside of Mike Starr, who was with him the day before he died on April 4, 2002.
Lanegan and Staley sang together on the Mad Season classic “Long Gone Day” in 1995, with talk of Lanegan singing on a second Mad Season album under a new name in the late 90’s falling apart when John Baker Saunders died in 1999.
When Mad Season’s surviving members Mike McCready and Barrett Martin finally regrouped to finish three songs from the incomplete record in 2013, they recruited Lanegan to sing lead vocals on Locomotive, Slip Away, and Black Book of Fear.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBKbUTT6qXU
