We start in St. Louis in the early 1980s, where Tweedy was in a garage-punk band called The Primitives, with high school friend Jay Farrar and Farrar’s brothers Wade and Dade. While The Primitives never gained fame outside the Midwest United States, the band is notable for being Tweedy’s first step on the path toward Wilco.
Here is The Primitives’ “Psycho,” from a live gig in 1985. Jeff Tweedy is the really young looking guy rocking both the dress and the bass (two things that most Wilco fans have probably never seen him do).
When Primitives vocalist Wade Farrar left to attend college, the band became a trio and changed their name to Uncle Tupelo. Jay Farrar took over vocal duties, and their sound evolved into a fusion of punk and country.
While earlier bands had already combined elements of country with rock and/or punk (REM, The Replacements, The Jayhawks), Uncle Tupelo are widely credited as being the first true alt-country band.
Though both Farrar and Tweedy shared co-writing and singing duties in Uncle Tupelo, the band wasn’t exactly a Lennon-McCartney style partnership. For starters, Farrar in reality took care of the bulk of the singing, as Tweedy was just starting to find his voice. As well, Farrar and Tweedy’s sonic preferences were quite different.
To illustrate this point, a Farrar song followed a Tweedy tune. Here’s Jay taking lead vox on “Whiskey Bottle,” which features just about the most perfect country-tinged lyric ever: “Whiskey bottle over Jesus/not forever/just for now.”
And now, “Gun,” featuring Tweedy’s voice, which was nowhere near as full as it is today.
Tweedy’s drinking and his desire to move beyond his secondary singer-songwriter duties are widely regarded as two of the key drivers behind the tension that eventually caused Uncle Tupelo’s split in 2004. When Jay Farrar decided to quit the band, Jeff Tweedy elected to forge ahead with the other members of Uncle Tupelo, changing their name to Wilco. The rest, as they say, is history.
Here’s Wilco on Letterman in 1997, performing “Outtasite (Outtamind)” off their second release, Being There. Wilco fans will be amused to see how young Tweedy looks. Everyone else should watch just to see Paul Schaffer pretend he’s in a real band.
