Black Dub grows from complex history

Black Dub, the new musical project of Daniel Lanois and Trixie Whitley, might have gestated from a chance alignment of like-minded souls in the right place at the right time, but one can’t ignore its tangible strength.

The partnership between Whitley, a 23-year-old blues artist, and Lanois, a multi-instrumentalist and renowned producer for U2 and Neil Young, unfolds like a musical fairy tale 20 years in the making.

As the daughter of the late Chris Whitley, a blues-rock guitarist with deep roots in the music world, the soundtrack to Whitley’s childhood spanned several genres.

She remembers hearing everything from soul to West African tunes to blues musician Muddy Waters, and singing along to the funk-psychedelia of Sly and the Family Stone.

“I wasn’t very aware of my voice as a kid. I always sang, but it wasn’t like I necessarily wanted to become a singer. But I absorbed everything I listened to,” Whitley said. “And, you know, being around my dad as a kid, it’s undeniable that his voice soaked into my skin.”

Her father also introduced her to a variety of musicians. One of them was Lanois, whom Whitley met when she was three years old during her father’s 1991 recording sessions for his track “Living with the Law.”

“My dad just got signed to Columbia [Records] and he recorded his first record at Dan’s studio, which was at his house in New Orleans. I lived at the house for about a year,” Whitley said. “Oddly enough, I was around all the people that Dan still works with, like the engineers and [jazz musician] Daryl Johnson. They were changing my diapers.”

Despite getting in some hours behind a drum set as a child, musicianship remained on the back-burner for Whitley.

At age 12, she traveled to Europe with a professional acting troupe, which later led to a stint in an eclectic modern dance company. It was through dance that Whitley reconnected with music.

“Dance and music are very similar, because how I relate very much to music is rhythmically, and rhythm is something that really runs through your body,” Whitley said. “I’m very much aware that that’s how I create my music, even vocally, and perform.”

But it was not until age 17 when Whitley, splitting her time between Belgium and the United States, decided to settle in New York City, delving into songwriting and making it the focal point of her life.

Writing and producing EPs and waitressing to pay the bills, Whitley decided to visit her mother in Belgium.

While she was there, the two attended a festival featuring a performance with Lanois. Although 20 years had passed since their last meeting, Whitley says Lanois instantly remembered her when she popped backstage for a quick greeting.

Two weeks after the festival, Whitley received a call from Lanois inviting her to the Berklee College of Music, where Lanois held an artist-in-residency position. Lanois and Whitley, along with drummer Brian Blade, recorded a demo of Whitley’s, “I’d Rather Go Blind,” more for experimentation than anything else.

“Nothing was really clear. I had no idea what I was going to be doing in Boston besides meeting him and hearing what he had to say,” Whitley said. “That first recording session was a big leap into understanding that we were really able to work together.”

The recording session at Berklee led to another in Toronto, where Johnson joined the trio and produced “I Believe in You.”

Although Whitley says she and Lanois approach songwriting differently — she takes an autobiographical approach while Lanois crafts stories around fictional people and events — the pair found harmony in their blues sensibility.

“Despite not knowing Dan personally for 20 years, he and his music were always such a big part of my life. The first songs I started writing were to his ambient instrumental records,” Whitley said. “It felt like a long-lost friend that I found again, even though we didn’t really know each other. It always felt like family — like I was home.”

But that home, like her memories of Lanois’ musical safe haven in New Orleans, is bittersweet for Whitley.

The memory of her father and his legacy still linger as she fervently crafts her own music.

“It’s quite a trip finding that balance and embracing that family history, but also trying to break free,” Whitley said. “I’m definitely not the type of person who would try to use [my family history] at all. I’m really trying to have my own identity and not step in the same footsteps of my father.”

Still, Whitley believes that emotionally, her relationship with Lanois “was a lot more complex than it would be without such a close background.”

Indeed, the aural evidence of that background makes Black Dub thrilling to listen to, as emotionally charged as it is technically compelling.