William Elliott Whitmore lives just down the river from us here in Rock Island, Ill., and he’s been quiet of late, fattening himself up, no doubt, on his farm in Lee County, Iowa. It’s the time of year for that – for staying indoors and not doing much of anything. The dark and rich farmland all around his self-constructed home, which he made out of an old corn crib, looks in the wings, cold and gray until it gets upturned and prepared for nesting a crop in a few months, looking like ground coffee beans, not gray ashes and frozen turd. Whitmore is as hardy of a soul as you’re ever going to get a chance to meet. If you introduce yourself to him, he’ll call you “brother” before you’ve stopped pressing hands. He is of that easy smile that you hear so much about in novels and his music is heavy on the vine with touching simplicity in thrust and a homesteader’s pride. He worships his home, where he comes from, the freedom of seclusion from the nasty hustling of the rapid world. He listens to the birds and the critters that scuttle around his camp. The “life” for Whitmore is a state of mind that keeps Mother Nature as his chief source of inspiration and whatever unpleasantness or uncertainty that gets heaved onto him through this easy-going style can be dealt with in his own earthy way. Those capfuls of bourbon, the Pabst Blue Ribbon and the wood-burning fire are the makers of resolution. The songs that come from these potions are parts of us that once we knew or have long-suppressed. They should be cooked a nice meal and asked to stay the night and not go back out into the cold weather. We think of Whitmore during this heart of the winter here in Iowa because his place is probably a little drafty – just like ours is here – and when the bitter cold hits, when it saws right into our shivering insides, we’re sure it’s the same stiff draft that he’s feeling and we’re connected by another little thing.

William Elliott Whitmore Daytrotter Session