by JOHNSON CUMMINS

In 1937, Robert Johnson sat in a San Antonio hotel room as a solitary microphone caught the then-unknown blues legend at his most primal and raw. Johnny Cash later nailed this recording technique on his trilogy series with Rick Rubin, and Bruce Springsteen also proved he was much more than just a blue-collar hollerer with only his voice, guitar and a porta-studio on Nebraska.

Last year, singer, songwriter and guitarist Chris Whitley created a pair of remarkably urgent and immediate recordings with just a guitar, his voice and a mini-disc recorder. The two records, War Crime Blues and Weed, were simultaneous, Internet-only releases - they'll only reach the old-fashioned record-store racks next week.

Recorded in various locations, including hotel rooms, a bathroom and even under a bridge as birds chirp in the background, Whitley's two albums prove he doesn't need post-production sheen or the safety net of multiple takes. His straight-from-the-hip approach is perfect for his skewed blues.

"It's funny, but when you record like that you almost feel like you haven't done anything," says Whitley. "It's just so much simpler, to the point that I was writing some of the stuff on the spot. I like making produced records as well, and I really like people like Hendrix or Beck, who will write with the production in mind. I just finished a produced record and I'm really excited about it. I guess the two approaches are just what I do and are who I am."

Whitley moved around the U.S. in the '80s, eventually settling in New York City to get his foot in the door of the record industry. After busking the streets and playing with New York underground scenesters - everybody from Dead Boy Cheetah Chrome and Johnny Thunders to Arto Lindsay and John Zorn - Whitley finally inked a deal with Sony at the age of 31. After three amazing releases, Whitley was given the major-label heave-ho in '96 and returned to his roots, stripping everything back down again, trading the tour bus for a car and the suits at Sony for a one-man operation run out of an extra bedroom.

"I really like it now. I'm able to make a living and I know exactly where my money is coming from, instead of just living off of advances from the record label. I have some pretty famous people, like Keith Richards and Dave Matthews, who've said nice things about me, and the press has always been good to me, so that has always helped. I guess I have a bit of a cult following now or something, and that's kind of cool with me."

Whitley just recently moved back to NYC after lengthy stays in Mexico, Belgium and Germany. Thinking of him as an expatriate is kind of strange, considering that he utilizes so much American imagery in his writing and the Delta-blues device of the National resonator guitar.

"It's really weird because, especially in Germany, they just have so much knowledge about American music, whereas here a lot of kids now have so much marketing being shoved on them they don't have any sense of history. You'll hear Johnny Cash and Chet Baker and stuff like that all the time, and people will talk about American music over there. For a while I had no address and it's good to be back in New York because I do miss things about American culture. But I've really always felt like more of a bastard than an American."

At Club One on Tuesday, Sept. 21, 8 p.m., $23

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