The Ringer have up a new article on the 25th anniversary of Nirvana’s Unplugged performance. In the piece, Dave Grohl praises a solo album by then Screaming Trees frontman Mark Lanegan.
One of the musicians he respected most, the man he called his favorite performer, was Lead Belly. Cobain’s take on the early 20th-century folk singer’s version of “Where Did You Sleep Last Night”—itself an adaptation of “In the Pines”—was the night’s last song. Cobain had played guitar and added background vocals on friend Mark Lanegan’s cover of the track, which appeared on the Screaming Trees frontman’s 1990 solo album The Winding Sheet.
Grohl: That was the soundtrack to my first six months in Olympia [Washington]. I listened to it every day—when the sun wouldn’t come up, when it went down too early and when it was cold and raining. I was lonely. I’d listen to that record for reasons. It was a huge influence on our Unplugged thing.
Marks: When he did “Where Did You Sleep Last Night,” it wasn’t one of those things where a month later, or a week later, or a year later, you’re like, “That was great,” even though you didn’t really know it at the time. You knew the dead second that it was happening that you were witnessing something phenomenal. You didn’t really even know he had it in him. It was that good.
