Death
In fall 2005, Whitley canceled his tour due to health issues. His brother, Dan Whitley, commented on November 11, 2005 that Chris was "in a comfortable warm home with hospice care at his disposal". Later that week it was revealed that Whitley was terminally ill with lung cancer. He died on November 20, 2005 in Houston, Texas at the age of 45.
Whitley's death received coverage in Time, the New York Times, National Public Radio and a mention at the 2006 Grammy Awards. After his death, the musician John Mayer said, " Chris Whitley died...with him went a big part of modern American blues music. There aren't many fighters for the cause, and Chris never gave up on his mission. His somewhat prostrated place in pop culture earned him a sidebar of an obituary, but to those who knew his work, it registers as one of the most underappreciated losses in all of music."
Read more about this topic: Chris Whitley
Famous quotes containing the word death:
“O Lord, methought what pain it was to drown,
What dreadful noise of waters in my ears!
What sights of ugly death within my eyes!”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“Nature creates while destroying, and doesn’t care whether it creates or destroys—as long as life isn’t extinguished, as long as death doesn’t lose its rights.”
—Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev (1818–1883)
“The One remains, the many change and pass;
Heaven’s light forever shines, Earth’s shadows fly;
Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass,
Stains the white radiance of Eternity,
Until Death tramples it to fragments.”
—Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)