Mark Lanegan: Elégie Funèbre

A track from the recently departed to mark our return. Mark Lanegan was one of a kind, perhaps

unfairly eulogised predominately for his early work with Screaming Trees, but his work cut across a wide range of styles, with maturity and style.

I only ever saw him once - when he played with Queens Of The Stone Age - and was struck by how he was able to not only contribute to a band that was already established - but do in such a way that the musicians became almost his backing band. It takes talent and a considerable presence to pull something like that off successfully. Considering his later work with Glasgow's Isobel Campbell I really should have taken the opportunity to see him more often.

Lanegan's career was interesting - some might use the word 'erratic'  - but he covered a huge amount of ground and embraced a wide variety of styles, bringing a unique presence to them all. He left behind an impressive discography of material with a band, solo and collaborative

His 2013 album Imitations was his second collection of cover versions, this time he included some of the work from his parents' record collection that affected his development as a musician as well as more contemporary work. 

There were two covers that got this blog's immediate attention, the closing numbers, a version of the Joseph Kosma and Jacques Prévert classic Autumn Leaves and a Manset cover.

The version of Autumn Leaves with Duff McKagen on bass must be the only one to feature the involvement of a member of  Guns 'n' Roses. 

The album also features a cover of Gérard Manset's Élégie Funèbre and while Lanegan''s French pronunciation might be open to question - I don't think he'd get away with it for a DELF or DALF exam - his effort is commendable and he manages to carry it off. 

The song was originally the closing track of Manset's 1970 La mort d'orion album, a collection that could loosely be described as Progressive Rock, with its elaborate arrangements and side-long concept piece. Lanegan's take is perhaps more direct but remains affecting.

With his death, we lose a unique artist, and while I didn't follow every twist and turn of his career with the attention I perhaps should have, his work was fascinating and he leaves a body of work that demands further investigation.