The Twilight Singers are a side project for
Afghan Whigs frontman
Greg Dulli.
Dulli conceived the group as a unit to make a concept album,
Twilight as Played by the Twilight Singers, and enlisted fellow vocalists
Harold Chichester of
Howlin' Maggie and
Shawn Smith of
Brad and other bands, along with
the Screaming Trees'
Barrett Martin and a group of New Orleans session musicians, in 1997, at a time when
the Afghan Whigs were between record contracts.
Dulli finished off a version of the album, but then
the Whigs signed to Columbia Records, it was thought best to issue a new
Whigs album before any solo effort. After 1998's
1965, therefore,
Dulli returned to his
Twilight Singers recordings, reconceiving the project with British remix team
Fila Brazillia (
Steve Cobby and
Dave McSherry). Columbia released the resulting album in September 2000. In 2003,
Dulli and the band issued the critically acclaimed
Blackberry Belle, which was followed the next year by
She Loves You, a collection of covers.
Dulli, who'd always had a fairly heavy drug habit, began to clean up his act and write songs for
the Twilight Singers' fourth album, 2006's
Powder Burns, which included appearances from ex-
Afghan Whig John Curley,
Queens of the Stone Age's
Dave Catching,
Joseph Arthur, and
Ani DiFranco. A majority of the album was recorded in producer
Mike Napolitano's studio in New Orleans, which had survived Hurricane Katrina but required generators to run it. Later that year, the five-song EP
A Stitch in Time, which included covers of
Massive Attack's "Live with Me" and
Fat Freddy's Drop's "Flashback (both featuring
Dulli's
Gutter Twin Mark Lanegan), as well as original tracks, came out as an iTunes release only, but was later issued on CD in early 2007. ~ William Ruhlmann & Marisa Brown, All Music Guide