Pneumonia (lost unreleased songs from Whiskeytown album; 1999-2001)
Pneumonia is alternative country band Whiskeytown's third and final album. The album took a reported three years to record, with band squabbles causing a lot of finished songs to be thrown out, with some sources saying over 100 songs were thrown out during recording sessions.[1] Even the completed album shows the band's frustrations, as the last few seconds of the hidden track "Bar Lights" has Ryan Adams breaking a string and saying "fuck this, I'm going to the bar". This take was left in despite this since it was the best one they had.
Producers remember the recording sessions of this album as being a giant ego battle between members Ryan Adams (not to be confused for Canadian rocker Bryan Adams) and Caitlin Cary. Adams would pen a song, Cary would try to add her own little "touches" to "make it her own" or vice versa and whole tracks would be thrown out due to heavy disagreements. Due to the high stress and production time/money being put into the project, the band was easily thrown off from Polygram Records when it merged with Universal, the same merger that affected Red House Painters' Old Ramon album.
By the time the album was finally released in 2001, it had been heavily bootlegged and already reviewed. Even Adams had a successful solo career going. As a matter of fact, the album wouldn't have even seen the light of day if it weren't for his solo career because it was used as a way to hold fans over for his 2001 album, Gold. The album featured 15 of the over 100 tracks. While many of the songs from the sessions were bootlegged, a vast majority of them remain lost or unreleased. Adams owns some of the master tapes, Cary owns another handful, a few were wiped for newer tracks, and the record company owns the rest. Adams has tried getting Whiskeytown back together too, at the very least, finish the unreleased songs. Cary has replied several times that it is never going to happen as she and Adams still can't get along.
References
- ↑ Page on archived Ryan Adams fansite that mentions the 100 songs. Retrieved 14 May '21