On March 18, I finally got a Google Alert about Jason Molina. It delivered news I did not want to hear. At only 39, Molina (who fronted the bands Songs: Ohia and Magnolia Electric Co.) had died of liver failure brought on by severe alcoholism, alone in his Indianapolis home the previous Saturday. Molina reportedly wrestled with a somewhat mysterious health issue that came to light when he uncharacteristically cancelled a 2009 tour with fellow indie-folk artist Will Johnson (who produced a collaborative album with Molina that year and remembers his friend here). Rumors and then news of rehab stints circulated across the Internet. But I hadn’t known about Molina’s struggles then. I’d been too busy battling my own body in New York, and it did not seem odd to me that the ordinarily prolific singer-songwriter hadn’t released anything in several years. If anything, I assumed he’d taken a well-deserved break. (Some of you may be understandably lost at this point; Jason Molina was not Amy Winehouse. I’ll back up in a minute. But for now, if you don’t know the incredible body of work on which you’ve missed out, use this currently-streaming live performance, recorded in 2007 at Cat’s Cradle in Carrboro, NC, as your reading soundtrack or download songs from Molina’s catalog courtesy of Secretly Canadian, the label that patronized Jason since its inception and calls him its “cornerstone.”)
