Singer, songwriter, rock star and critical favorite Alex Chilton died of an apparent heart attack this past March of 2010, just a week or two before Big Star was to re-unite and perform at the South-Southwest Music Festival. He was 59 years old and left behind a wife and a child.
He is probably best known to the most contemporary of you as being the writer and long-time performer of “In the Street,” which is the basis of the theme song of the well-known and long running TV show hit, “That Seventies Show.” “In the Street” appeared on Big Star’s first album in 1972, and labored in obscurity for many years. However, as Big Star and Alex Chilton enjoyed a revival in the 1980s and 1990s, the band Cheap Trick were clever enough to rework the song “In the Street” into “That Seventies Song,” circa 1999, which is precisely the same song as “In the Street, but with a bigger instrumental guitar and choral hook—but it’s still the same song.
"IN THE STREET" FROM "#1 RECORD" BY BIG STAR WRITTEN BY ALEX CHILTON WAS THE THEME SONG FOR "THAT SEVENTIES SHOW" - IRONIC BECAUSE THE ORIGINAL ALBUM AND SONG BARELY SOLD AT ALL AND NO ONE IN THE SEVENTIES EVER ACTUALLY HEARD OF THE SONG ON RADIO OR IN PERSON
Chilton is also well-known to the sixties and seventies generations as the lead singer of the Box Tops and the hit song “The Letter,” which was frequently covered by many bands, including most notably Joe Cocker, who made it one of his signature songs.
THE BOX TOPS DOING “THE LETTER”
JOE COCKER LEON RUSSELL AND A GREAT BAND DOING “THE LETTER” LIVE CIRCA 1969 THIS VERSION ROCKS!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RnjWLVyMps&feature=related
Was that John Belushi or Joe Cocker? I don’t know either!
THE LETTER (1940) ALSO A FAMOUS CLASSIC FILM NOIR STARRING BETTE DAVIS
Later, Chilton became the lead singer of Big Star in the early 1970s, where he led a movement towards Beatles-style power pop and away from long blues-based guitar solos and progressive rock. This band issued three studio albums, and later reformed and issued live albums as well as reissuing a live radio album from the 1970s. This material was profoundly influential on the 1980s generation of indie rock and alternative music bands, including the paisley underground bands of LA, such as the Bangles, Rain Parade, Three O’Clock, Mazzy Star, the Dream Syndicate and the Go-Gos, the Athens GA movement including REM, Pylon, Mitch Easter and many others, and many other influential bands, towns and movements, including notably the Replacements, who actually recorded and issued a major label song entitled “Alex Chilton” in 1987. All of these groups either covered Chilton or Big Star’s music, or were profoundly influenced both in their sound and their songwriting by Chilton and Big Star. A perfect example of a singer and backing band which fully absorbed the style of Big Star but attained superstar status in the 1980s and beyond would be Morrissey and the Smiths. “Girlfriend in a Coma” was a brilliant song, but it also sounds as if it came directly off one of Big Star’s albums, or from Alex Chilton’s pen.
ALEX CHILTON PLAYING IN RECENT YEARS LIVE
On April 25, 1993, Big Star with two of its three original members (Chris Bell had passed away in 1978) played a live show at the University of Missouri which was recorded and released as a CD, where they were backed by Ken Stringfellow and Jon Auer of the Posies, yet another famous indie/alt band highly influenced by Chilton and Big Star. This album, featuring a lineup of Alex Chilton on vocals and guitar, Jody Stephens on drums and vocals, Jonathan Auer on guitar, lead and backing vocals, and Ken Stringfellow on bass and lead and backing vocals, is one of the greatest live albums every recorded.
This CD, simply entitled Columbia Big Star Live at Missouri University 4/25/93, leads off with “In the Street”, and doesn’t let up for fourteen glorious songs. The lineup is;
1) in the street
2) don’t lie to me
3) when my baby’s beside me
4) I am the cosmos
5) the ballad of el goodo
6) back of a car
7) way out west
8) daisy glaze
9) baby strange (by marc bolan)
10) for you
11) feel
12) September gurls
13) thank you friends
14) slut (by todd rungren)
Here’s what the liner notes to this CD say. “Big Star.” For most of the good people of Memphis, Tennessee, these two words conjure up nothing more out-of-the-way than the name of a regional supermarket chain. This is probably as true today as it was in 1971-74, when local band Big Star recorded a pair of critically acclaimed but generally ignored albums, played a few gigs, and broke up. They never really found an audience for their music, with its sunny surfaces and undercurrents of darkness and dread, and as far as the perpetrators were concerned, that was that. In the modern world of postpunk pop’n’roll, however, Big Star is IT. Mentioning the group to members and fans of REM, Teenage Fan Club, the Replacements and dBs, and countless younger bands and next-big-things on both sides of the Atlantic is like mentioning the Holy Grail to a medieval Christian. Big Star wrote and recorded sophisticated, meticulously crafted pop songs but played them like true blue rock-and-rollers, with the intensity, the edge, and the grunge deliberately left in. In the 1990s, this approach has become the very ESSENCE of guitar-band rock, especially in its “alternative” manifestations. Big Star may not have made many waves during its original period of largely thankless existence, so what? Nowadays, the CHICAGO TRIBUNE can call them “the most influential group in pop music outside the Beatles,” [citation omitted] and it’s taken not as hyperbole but as simple fact.” Liner notes to Columbia Big Star, cited supra, by Robert Palmer, noted rock critic & rock journalist.
According to Palmer’s liner notes to the CD/album, this is what Chilton said about his/Big Star’s live performance on this CD: “I thought we got a good, screamin’ thing going….It was loose as a goose, and it rocked more than it did the first time around. I was pleased. I mean, there’s no point going on-stage and sucking.” -Alex Chilton, 1993.
1) Alex Chilton and the Box Tops – “The Letter,” other hits, His Sixties Legacy, Joe Cocker & John Belushi Singing “The Letter
In 1967, when he was only sixteen years old, Chilton was lead singer for the Box Tops, and sang “The Letter,” which was a #1 record and one of the biggest hits of 1967 and a bullet smash hit. The Box Tops were originally known as “Ronnie and the Devilles, incidentally.
“Revered by indie rockers for his highly personal brand of power pop in Big Star [see below, infra] and the eccentricity of his solo albums [see below, infra], Alex Chilton achieved his greatest commercial success as the 16-year old lead singer of the Box Tops. The Memphis quintet was cobbled together by veteran Memphis producer Dan Penn to record a single, “The Letter,” a huge hit that blended a sophisticated string arrangement with a jaunty, calliope-like keyboard riff and the sound of an airplane taking off. But it was the gravelly, remarkably mature wail of the teenage Chilton that separated “The Letter” from other Summer of Love radio fodder…”Cry Like a Baby” produced another major hit, and Chilton began contributing to the songwriting…while cementing his status as a blue-eyed soul stylist on “I Met Her in Church.” [The Box Tops’ next album] Dimensions [1969] took a more eccentric turn, with a lascivious novelty (“Sweet Cream Ladies, Forward March”), a leering Chilton blues ballad (“I Must Be the Devil”) and a …[long blues] guitar jam] (a nine minute “Rock Me Baby”).” [Reunited Thirty Years Later, 1998’s] Tear Off [Last Call, 1998]found a reunited Box Tops ripping it up on a batch of vintage blues, soul and rockabilly tunes that inspired their sound three decades earlier.” The New Rolling Stone Album Guide: Complete Revised and Updated Fourth Edition. N. Brackett, ed. (A Fireside Book, Simon & Schuster, NY, NY, 1979, 1983, 1992, 2004). At pp. 100-101.
The song “The Letter” was so successful that it was covered by many other artists, most notably Joe Cocker, who pretty much appropriated it, turning a two minute pop masterpiece into a six or seven minute overblown piece of psychedelia, rock guitar and horn solos, fronted by a writhing, frothing Joe Cocker.
Many newer rock fans actually thought this was Joe Cocker’s song, and never realized that there had been a Box Tops, an Alex Chilton, or an earlier version of “The Letter.” After all, Alex Chilton never played at Woodstock, while the better-known Joe Cocker most certainly did play at Woodstock, and many other well-known venues.
Joe Cocker’s overblown and overwrought singing of “The Letter,” seen at Woodstock and on the rockumentary “Mad Dogs and Englishmen” (1970) was the singing style and the singer we all remember as being lampooned by my late (distant) cousin former 2d City actor, SNL and film star John Belushi on Saturday Night Live—John Belushi doing Joe Cocker doing “The Letter.” On one famous SNL episode, Cocker actually came out beside Belushi and they sang side by side. This stuff virtually defined modern comedy as well as modern rock music. Plus, it was really, really funny.
Incidentally, both Chilton and Cocker were still performing “The Letter” even up to the present day. Belushi is long gone (RIP 1982) but his Joe Cocker (along with his buzzing bee and blues brother) are out there on DVD and YouTube. You really had to be there, but if you weren’t, well, you’ll get the idea. Sort of like Spinal Tap, except one louder.
BIG STAR PLAYING LIVE AT HYDE PARK IN RECENT YEARS LONDON UK
2) Alex Chilton and Big Star – His Seventies and Eighties Influence on REM, New Wave and other Major Bands and Movements
“A seemingly unlikely figure for a new wave progenitor, Memphis-born ex-Box Tops singer [Alex] Chilton nonetheless exerted tremendous influence on many groups via his unconventional early ‘70s recordings with Big Star…#1 Record…recorded in 1972, when its Beatlesesque harmonies, early Byrds/Kinks guitar sound and crisp, tight, live-sounding production were decidedly out of vogue, the album was an early rejection of then-dominant “progressive” rock, which had already fallen victim to the giant ego-tripping of not-so-giant talents.” Trouser Press Record Guide: The Ultimate Guide to Alternative Music. Ira A. Robbins, Ed. (Collier Books, Macmillan Publishing Co., NY, NY, 1983, 1985, 1989, 1991, 4th ed.). at pp. 122-23.
“Big Star: Radio City (Ardent 1974). Brilliant, addictive, definitely semipopular, and all Alex Chilton—Chris Bell, his folkie counter part, just couldn’t take it any more. Boosters claim this is just what the AM has been waiting for, but the only pop coup I hear is a reminder of how spare, skew and sprung the Beatles ’65 were, which is a coup because they weren’t. The harmonies sound like the lead sheets are upside down and backwards, the guitar solos sound like screwball readymade pastiches, and the lyrics sound like love is strange, though maybe that’s just the context. Can an album be catchy and twisted at the same time? Grade: A.” Christgau’s Record Guide: Rock Albums of the ‘70s: Reviewed and Graded by Village Voice Critic Robert Christgau. With his selection of the best records from the ‘50s to the ‘80s. (Ticknor & Fields, New Haven, CT & NY, NY, 1981, 1st paperback ed.). at pp. 46-47.
“Big Star: Third [aka Sister Lovers] (PVC 1978). In late 1974, Alex Chilton—already the inventor of self-conscious power pop—transmogrified himself into some hybrid of Lou Reed (circa The Velvet Underground and/or Berlin) and Michael Brown [the Beau Brummels] (circa “Walk Away Renee” and “Pretty Ballerina”). This is the album that resulted—fourteen songs in all, only two or three of which wander off into the psycho ward. Halting, depressive, eccentrically shaped, it will seem beyond the pale to those who already find his regular stuff weird. I think it’s prophetically idiosyncratic and breathtakingly lyrical. Grade: A-.” Id. at p. 47.
“….the best songs [on Radio City]—“September Gurls” and “Back of a Car”—are as good as any rock ‘n’roll produced in the first half of the ‘70s.” –Trouser Press Record Guide, cited supra, above, at p. 124.
“Recorded in 1974 but unreleased until 1978—by which time Big Star had broken up [for the first time]—[Big Star] 3rd, reissued much later under its original title of Sister Lovers, is almost a[n] [Alex] Chilton solo album. Alex, Big Star drummer Jody Stephens and a host of Memphis friends and sessioneers (Jim Dickinson and [famed Memphis Stax/Volt guitarist] Steve Cropper among them) comprise the band. Capturing Chilton at a point when his creative powers were still strong enough to effectively chronicle the spiritual pain which would eventually sideline him for an extended stretch, it’s an eclectic mix, alternately depressing and uplifting, ugly and beautiful….3rd/Sister Lovers is—in its own fragile, ragged way—Chilton’s most compelling (not to mention influential) album….3rd/Sister Lovers does a brilliant job of balancing madness and genius, with classic tracks like “Holocaust,” “Dream Lover,” and “Stroke it Noel.” Standing as some of the most chillingly beautiful music ever produced in the pop medium.” –Id. at p. 124.
“Big Star toiled in obscurity in the 1970s, making off-kilter garage pop that hardly anybody noticed at the time. The Memphis popsters were too light and tuneful to connect with the hard-rock crowd, too weird for mainstream attention. But their music kept blowing young minds and influencing other musicians, and by the time the American indie underground came into its own in the 1980s, they were rightfully acclaimed as [its] forefathers. Poignant, plaintive, brainy, Big Star devised a cool rock & roll swagger that was quintessentially Southern; the music was artsy and bohemian, yet had nothing at all to do with New York or LA, and it has made these men [Alex Chilton, Jody Stephens and the late Chris Bell, RIP 1978] cult heroes to generations of restless small-town kids. All three Big Star [studio] albums have taken their places as classics.” The New Rolling Stone Album Guide, cited supra, above. At p. 71.
“Lead singer Alex Chilton [of Big Star] was already a jaded music-biz castaway by the time the band [Big Star] started. After singing the Box Tops’ hit “The Letter as a teenager, he’d sunk back into obscurity. With Big Star, his voice got higher and lighter, meshing with the jagged guitar chime of #1 Record [1972]. Along with drummer Jody Stephens and fellow singer/songwriter Chris Bell, Chilton had a bent style of Beatles songcraft, with guitar ravers such as “Feel” and “In the Street” alongside one of the all-time great love songs, the acoustic “Thirteen.” Radio City [1973] is even sharper and smarter, with Chilton’s boyish, angelic, occasionally zonked out vocals on top of slashing guitar and barbed harmonies. “September Gurls,” “Life is White,” and “Mod Lang” became underground classics, rewriting the Rubber Soul [Beatles] songbook with a bittersweet Memphis edge, and…bassist Andy Hummell contributed the killer “Way Out West.” Id. at p. 71.
“Radio City didn’t sell and Big Star’s followup took years to get released. Originally issued in 1978 as Third, more commonly known by its original title Sister Lovers, it’s a truly amazing album of catatonic grandeur, full of long, slow, rambling melodies that sink to the depths of despair (“You’re sitting down to dress/and you’re a mess”) goes one typical lyric. Chilton’s songs are stark and brilliant, with piano, strings, heavy studio reverb, eccentric soul flourishes and a cover of Lou Reed’s “Femme Fatale.” Id. at pp. 71-72.
Chilton took time off after Big Star, drying out from alcohol, and working in New Orleans for a time as a dishwasher. He made his comeback initially making a series of solo albums, and has continued making them, all of which are now also considered to be influential and part of the pantheon of his music, including in no particular order, Like Flies on Sherbert (1979), Bach’s Bottom (1981), Live in London (1982), Document (1985), Alex Chilton’s Lost Decade (1985), Feudalist Tarts (1985), No Sex (1986), High Priest (1986), Black List (1990), Stuff (1991), Cliches (1994), A Man Called Destruction (1995) and 1970 (1996). See id. at p. 162. In addition, Chilton has in the past twenty years continued to reunite and tour with both the Box Tops and also with Big Star, and issued new live and studio materials with both groups. He was supposed to perform live with Big Star just the week after his untimely death. In short, Alex Chilton was, up until his untimely death, a working, recording musician in demand, recording solo albums as well as touring and performing solo, and with both groups which made him famous. He has also been in great demand on many groups albums as a sideman and session man. As one source puts it, “Alex Chilton is your basic professional cult legend. Barely ever inspired to work, famously surly, musically brilliant, commercially nonexistent, he’s bounced around the edge of the music business for over thirty years, the picture of dapper wastedness.” Id. at p. 162.
Big Star and Alex Chilton hugely influenced REM, to the extent that REM were basically seen as a reincarnation of Big Star for the first few years of their existence. Both bands were southern, both were indie-alt, and both bands concentrated on bright, hook-laded pop with beatles-esque psychedelia and weird studio effects/lyrics—in short, REM very highly emulated Big Star and Alex Chilton for their first five or eight CDs/Albums.
Many other bands were also influenced in Athens, GA by Big Star and Alex Chilton during this time, including Pylon, Mitch Easter and his various groups, the dBs and Chris Stamey, all documented on LPs/CDs like Athens, GA Inside Out.
The Paisley Underground in LA were deeply influenced by Alex Chilton and Big Star. The Bangles, originally known as the Bangs, famously covered “September Gurls” on one of their earliest albums, and beautifully so. The entire early sound of the Bangles was very consciously based on Big Star and the Beatles. On the album/CD “Rainy Day” (Serpent-Enigma 1984, 1989), featuring a supersession of artists David Roback, with members of the Rain Parade, Bangles, Three O’Clock, Dream Syndicate and other LA Bands, the song “Holocaust” was famously covered from Big Star’s 3rd/Sister Lovers. Rain Parade was deeply influenced by both the Beatles and Big Star, as was Mazzy Star, Roback’s later project. The Go-Gos were also heavily influenced by the pop textures of the Beatles and Big Star. Later bands out of NY, LA and the heartland would be heavily influenced by the sound of these artists, and in turn, would seek out the roots of the Beatles and Big Star for inspiration.
The Replacements were also heavily influence by Alex Chilton & Big Star, so much so that they recorded a tribute to Alex Chilton in 1987, entitled “Alex Chilton,” on which Alex Chilton actually plays in the studio.
ALEX CHILTON IN THE STUDIO WHERE HE WAS A MUSICAL WIZARD AND GENIUS
3) The 1990s 2000s and Beyond
More modern bands have been greatly influenced by Alex Chilton and Big Star, including notably Evan Dando and the Lemonheads, Death Cab for Cutie, Trent Reznor and Nine Inch Nails. One could even make the argument that Big Star’s 3rd/Sister Lovers is a direct inspiration for Kurt Cobain and Nirvana, and the entire school of Seattle grunge music which followed, and continues to follow, in their wake. The fact is, there isn’t a pop/rock or even a rap band playing today that isn’t influenced by Alex Chilton and Big Star.
The other notable fact about the recent era is the influence of That Seventies Show, and its title track, “That Seventies Song”, which is directly based by Cheap Trick on the 1993 Live at Missouri version of “In the Street”, rather than upon the studio version originally recorded in 1972. The show has had a long run, and now is in syndication, which means every day, some kid in America is listening to Alex Chilton and Big Star’s music, and learning about the seventies—or at least Hollywood’s idea of what the seventies were like.
So, in the end, it’s pretty much like the Replacements sang in their song Alex Chilton in 1987:
If he was from Venus, would he feed us with a spoon?
If he was from Mars, wouldn’t that be cool?
Standing right on campus, would he stamp us in a file?
Hangin’ down in Memphis all the while.
(chorus:)
Children by the million sing for Alex Chilton when he comes ’round
They sing “I’m in love. What’s that song?
I’m in love with that song.”
Cerebral rape and pillage in a village of his choice.
Invisible man who can sing in a visible voice.
Feeling like a hundred bucks, exchanging good lucks face to face.
Checkin’ his stash by the trash at St. Mark’s place.
(chorus)
I never travel far, without a little Big Star
Runnin’ ’round the house, Mickey Mouse and the Tarot cards.
Falling asleep with a flop pop video on.
If he was from Venus, would he meet us on the moon?
If he died in Memphis, then that’d be cool, babe.
(chorus)
http://www.lyricsdepot.com/the-replacements/alex-chilton.html
THE REPLACEMENTS "PLEASED TO MEET ME" FEATURING "ALEX CHILTON" 1987 AMAZING LP
