Wilco's band loft is situated on Chicago's North Side, and that's where writer Bret Gladstone begins his thorough and thoughtful "trip through Jeff Tweedy's world" for the Associated Press.

"On the surface, he is—should be—a simple American guy ... who grew up in a blue-collar town made of breweries, foundries, and strip mines," Gladstone writes. "But he‘s also complicated and quite possibly a near-genius. If you can grasp that dichotomy, you've essentially grasped Wilco's music."

In a candid interview, Tweedy speaks openly about making music, about keeping healthy, and, most personally, about his mother's unexpected passing last year. ("There will never be a bigger fan, or a more supportive person in my life ... In a sense, everything was a tribute to my mom.") The article explores how that "simple American guy" became "one of the most important songwriters of his generation." For Gladstone, "the story of Wilco is that Jeff Tweedy has built a career on bending the world around him to the shape of his psyche and the shape of his art." He continues:

That's precisely what made their last album, Sky Blue Sky, so striking ... it's the most autobiographically literal, extroverted music Tweedy has written [in years]—an album not about America, but the simple realities and joys of domestic life. The songs are about acceptance, gratitude, fidelity, love, hope, and the inevitability of change. At its best, Sky is a reflection of Tweedy's life as it exists now ... At its core, Sky Blue Sky is an album about speaking plainly as possible—to his fans, with his band, and, most importantly, to his family.

The article goes on to detail the recording process Wilco used on earlier records like Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and A Ghost Is Born—what the band calls "fundamentals," with Jeff and the other band members recording in separate booths—and how Sky Blue Sky differed, with everyone playing in the same room. For Gladstone, this made a significant contribution to the album's impact:

Sky Blue Sky is that unique item in the Wilco catalogue: the sound of a band communicating with itself. The richness is in the closeness and clarity of the instruments, and all the most intimate conversations take place between the players. Tweedy has always expressed his love for Bob Dylan and The Band's Basement Tapes, and this is as close to an album like that as Wilco has recorded.

One difference Gladstone suggests between Dylan and Tweedy is their apparently divergent takes on what a musician might be expected to share with his fans. He contrasts Dylan's insistence on maintaining a private persona with the candor the Wilco front man exhibits in the interview and which he has shown throughout his career. Tweedy demurs:

I think that there's a big part of what I've been doing that does feel vulnerable and scary sometimes ... But at the same time I can tell you that that is not me. It is someone who is very, very similar to me and expresses things that I feel strongly about. But it could never be me. There is a persona that will always be projected on you whether you make one or not. And those movies and things that people see about me are not who I am. Who I am is always going to be who I am with my family, who I am on a day-to-day basis, and who I am in the eyes of the people who love and care about me and that I love and care about.

Read complete article from the Associated Press on news.yahoo.com.