10 years ago today, the tragic news came out that Jay Bennett had passed away in his sleep at the age of 45. At the time of his death, the renowed musician — known largely for his work as a member of Wilco — was scheduled to peform ata the Play or Pose benefit at the Highdive that night, but never showed.** Bennett was living in Urbana at the time, and spent a good portion of his life here in C-U.
Read more about Bennett’s death at Doug Hoepker’s SPlog from May 24, 2009, as well as the retrospective piece done by the Editors at the time here. Bennett was featured on our Top 20 albums of the decade back in 2009 as well.
** UPDATE: Tuesday, May 28th at 10:15 am: After a few reader submissions, we’d like to provide a correction regarding Bennett and the alleged scheduled performance during the Play or Pose Benefit on the day of his death.
Although that information is posted on his Wikipedia page, we cannot confirm that Bennett was actually scheduled to perform that evening. It is believed that people were hopeful Bennett would join the show, but nothing was definitely confirmed for him to appear. We hope this clarifies any confusion, and sincerely apologize for the misinformation initially posted.
