Cory Chisel has drawn about as close as one can to Jack White’s orbit without getting absorbed into it. He recorded his album, Death Won’t Send a Letter, at Blackbird Studio (where White has worked), enlisted Joe Chiccarelli (who recorded Icky Thump) to produce and got every other Raconteur in on the action, Jack Lawrence and Patrick Keeler as a studio rhythm section and Brendan Benson as a co-writer (of not-as-evangelistic-as-it-sounds synthy ’60s folk-rock single “Born Again”) and tour mate (Benson, of course, is the headliner on this one). Chisel is his own man. And that man happens to be a church-bred Midwestern singer-songwriter who dresses like Marty Robbins in his Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs era, sings expressively in a husky, blues-shaded voice and writes sturdy songs, some of them quiet and nuanced and some with wiry rock hooks.
Sat., Dec. 12, 8 p.m., 2009
