Vic Chesnutt
singer-songwriter from Athens, Georgia (1964–2009)
James Victor Chesnutt (November 12, 1964 – December 25, 2009) was an American singer-songwriter from Athens, Georgia. His first album, Little, was released in 1990. His commercial breakthrough came in 1996 with the release of Sweet Relief II: Gravity of the Situation, a charity record of alternative artists covering his songs.
Chesnutt released 17 albums during his career, including two produced by Michael Stipe, and a 1996 release on Capitol Records, About to Choke. His musical style has been described by Bryan Carroll of AllMusic as a "skewed, refracted version of Americana that is haunting, funny, poignant, and occasionally mystical, usually all at once".
Injuries from a 1983 car crash left him partially paralyzed; he used a wheelchair and had limited use of his hands.
Early life
An adoptee, Chesnutt was raised in Zebulon, Georgia, where he first started writing songs at the age of five. When he was 13, Chesnutt declared that he was an atheist, a position that he maintained for the rest of his life.
At 18, while drinking and driving, a car crash left him partially paralyzed. In a December 1, 2009, interview with Terry Gross on her NPR show Fresh Air, Chestnutt said he was "a quadriplegic from [his] neck down", and although he had feeling and some movement in his body, he could not walk "functionally".
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Vic Chesnutt” is singer-songwriter from Athens, Georgia (1964–2009). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Chesnutt, singer-songwriter and Athens, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “singer-songwriter from Athens, Georgia (1964–2009)” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 25, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q525698. VIAF identifies the subject as 5128027. The Library of Congress control number is no96048365. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1964, 2009, 1990 and 1996.
A concise life account rarely captures disputed attribution, private networks or the changing language used to describe a career. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Vic Chesnutt” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.