Former Wilco multi-instrumentalist Jay Bennett is dead at the age of 45. Cause is unknown.
Bennett joined the band not long after their debut album and hung on for one of the best three-album arcs any band has ever pulled off: Being There, Summerteeth, and their magnum opus, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. I saw them at Lynagh's not long after Being There came out, and Bennett was what really stood out for me; they were clearly Tweedy's songs and it was clearly Tweedy's band, but it was the big hulking guy hunched over his keyboards in the back corner who defined their sound.
His departure from the band is documented in the excellent I Am Trying to Break Your Heart, along with the now legendary story behind YHF's release. The movie doesn't really explain why he quit, but it doesn't have to; by that point it's clear that both Bennett and Tweedy were difficult people to work with (especially in Tweedy's pre-rehab days) and there's no way it could have lasted. But I suspect that Bennett really pushed the band during his tenure, and that without him they might have been stuck in the unremarkable roots-rock sound of A.M. and they would have disappeared into the same relative obscurity as Jay Farrar's Son Volt. (Are they still together? I don't know, which is my point.)
