*** UPDATE: ***JesseCASH has set up a donation page requesting assistance to go directly to Vic’s family. Click here to be taken to the donation page. (via Kristin Hersh)

With a heavy heart, we can now verify that indeed, sadly, of one of the Athens music scene’s most enduring figures, songwriter and guitarist Vic Chesnutt, has died. The cause of death is suicide.

Surrounded by family and friends, Vic Chesnutt died in Athens Georgia this afternoon, Friday 25 December at 14:59.

Several news sources had reported on Thursday that Chesnutt had fallen into a coma, and rumors about his condition began to circulate on the internet. A Twitter message from Henry Owings, the man behind Chunklet Magazine and a friend of Chesnutt’s, first sent the news to people that Chesnutt had died, later confirmed by a piece published in The San Francisco Examiner.

However, many people close to the situation, including the head of Chesnutt’s label at the time of his death, Constellation Records, worked vehemently to let people know that Chesnutt was not dead but remained in a coma. As a result, major news outlets (including Billboard and Spinner) pulled their stories on Chesnutt on Christmas Eve, turning the profound sadness felt by Chesnutt’s many fans around the world to confusion over the facts.

Confined to a wheelchair since he was 18, when a car accident left him a quadriplegic, Chesnutt was a master of melodramatic songwriting, one who was able to use the tragedy of his accident as a means of becoming aligned with his life’s work. Chesnutt was known for crafting songs that proved him at times both precociously venerable and, frequently, restlessly vulnerable. When Michael Stipe, the lead singer of R.E.M., first discovered Chesnutt in the late 1980’s, he was so taken with his work that he was moved to produced Chesnutt’s first releases, Little and West of Rome. Chesnutt went on to create a sphere of influence with his music, including his seminal 1995 album, Is The Actor Happy?, an album which established him as one of the decade’s pre-eminent songwriting masters.

In 1996, Chesnutt’s music was recorded for the benefit album Sweet Relief II: The Gravity of the Situation by a variety of major industry figures, including Garbage, The Smashing Pumpkins Madonna and R.E.M. The proceeds from this album still continue to benefit Sweet Relief, a nonprofit organization that assists musicians without insurance in their times of medical need.

Chesnutt’s last two albums, At the Cut and Skitter on Take-Off (both released this year) have been lauded by fans and critics as being among his most vital in a career that spanned some 25 years. The albums now prove fitting swan songs to Chesnutt’s legacy. We here share sadness with and extend our condolences to his family, friends and many fans around the world.

UPDATE: A memorial service for Chesnutt appears to have been planned for Sunday, though it is not known whether it will be open to the public.

Vic Chesnutt – Flirted With You All My Life

[Songs Of Survival And Reflection: 'At The Cut' (NPR, 12/1/09)]