 |
    |
Born: 1950 12 28
iSound Site: www.isound.com/alex_chilton
|
|
|
| Alex Chilton was born in Memphis, Tennessee on December 28, 1950. His father was a musician, and Alex grew up in a house surrounded by music and art. His earliest influences were Chet Baker and Ray Charles; he would continue to do songs by both artists throughout his caree |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
by
|
![]() |
|
Label:
Media:
|
|
|
| | |
|
Alex Chilton was born in Memphis, Tennessee on December 28, 1950. His father was a musician, and Alex grew up in a house surrounded by music and art. His earliest influences were Chet Baker and Ray Charles; he would continue to do songs by both artists throughout his career.
Chilton took up the guitar when he was around thirteen years old, and he was spurred on by the success of the British invasion groups. And he listened to the spare style of Steve Cropper as well. These two strands--the pop songs of the Beatles and the Byrds, and the soul music of Memphis--would continue to intertwine as he matured.
Having sung in various pick-up bands around Memphis, including several that included future Big Star bandmate Chris Bell, Alex was recruited to sing with a group that later was christened the Box Tops. Mainly the brainchild of Alabama-born singer/songwriter/producer Dan Penn, the Box Tops had two huge hits, "The Letter" (1967), and "Cry Like a Baby" (1968). Both featured the soulful, deep vocals of the teenaged Chilton, who would later dismiss these early efforts as strictly the extension of Dan Penn, although Chilton continues, to this day, to perform with the Box Tops, and do some of his old Box Tops material in his own act. The Box Tops toured with many of the biggest stars of the day, including Wilson Pickett and the Beach Boys; Chilton would cite Carl Wilson as one of his major influences on guitar, and has often performed Beach Boys tunes in live shows.
By 1969, Alex Chilton had become dissatisfied with the Box Tops arrangement, and quit the group. He moved to New York and performed in folk clubs, and moved back to Memphis around the beginning of 1971. There he joined Chris Bell, an Anglophile guitarist and singer, Andy Hummel, a bassist, and drummer Jody Stephens, to form Big Star; they named themselves after a Memphis supermarket chain.
Big Star recorded their first album during 1971 and 1972; titled "#1 Record," it was released in late 1972 and garnered rave reviews. Being on the Ardent label (named after the studio in which the band recorded), and distributed by the ailing Stax organization, "#1 Record" was a critical and artistic success but a commercial failure. Big Star, too, was mainly a studio band, and played few live shows, mainly due to the perfectionism of Bell.
Still, this first album is a magnificent effort by any standard, a synthesis of Moby Grape-style rock and Memphis understatement. Its finest songs ("In the Street" and "When My Baby's Beside Me") are classics of "power pop," although they transcend the genre.
Big Star broke up for a while after the failure of "#1 Record" and re-formed to make "Radio City," which was recorded in 1973 and released in early 1974. Stephens did not play on all the tracks; some drumming was done by Memphis session musician Richard Roseborough. And Chris Bell might or might not have played on the record, but certain songs bear traces of his songwriting--Chilton later said that the two of them, who shared the songwriting on the first album, did collaborate on some of the material.
Whatever the origin, "Radio City" is, if anything, even better than the first record. The rather folkish overtones that Bell had brought to bear were gone, and "Radio City" was like "Rubber Soul" for a more conflicted decade--slick yet deadly. "Back of a Car" and "September Gurls" are the two most famous songs from this album, which has been re-issued, with extremely obtuse liner notes, in the last ten years (coupled with "#1 Record").
In late 1974, Big Star returned to the studio and made a series of recordings that would surface four years later as "Third." Robert Christgau described these songs as a combination of Michael Brown and Lou Reed. Murky yet lyrical, "Third/Sister Lovers/Beale Street Green" is, if anything, even more gripping that either of the first two albums, and one of the most convincing accounts of disillusion ever produced. Chilton would later dismiss this album, as well as much of Big Star's music, as adolescent groping, but music fans continue to worship these records, and rightly so.
The later part of the '70s found Chilton doing various things; he recorded some crazed and funny tracks with Jon Tiven "producing," did some punkish shows in New York (documented on an extremely rare Japanese LP), recorded a couple of classics, like "Bangkok," and, in 1978, cut a loose, anarchic look back at his past called "Like Flies on Sherbert" that sported, as did "Radio City," a cover photo by famed Memphis photographer William Eggleston.
Opinion has been divided over "Sherbert"; some see it as self-indulgent waste, and others view it as a brave step away from his earlier music. Certainly, "Sherbert" is unusual, and liberating in its total regard for musical pieties. Included are some good originals, as well as cover versions of songs by Jimmy C. Newman, K.C. and the Sunshine Band, and the Carter Family. The original LP, released in 1979, was put out in a 500-copy limited edition, and reissued in 2000, in its original form, on CD. It also marked the continuation of Chilton's association with producer Jim Dickinson, who had been on hand during the "Third" sessions.
The early '80s found Chilton fighting drinking and massive record company indifference. "Live in London" documents a performer gone awry; when a fan yells out a request for the Big Star classic "Mod Lang," Chilton yells back, "my plane?" He also performed with Tav Falco's Panther Burns, a bizarre rockabilly group, and produced records by the Cramps.
After getting himself together in New Orleans, Chilton resurfaced in 1985 with an EP, "Feudalist Tarts," that showcased his love of old r & b and soul. Somewhat weak it was, but enjoyable, particularly his ultra-cool version of Willie Tee's "Thank You John."
His next EP, "No Sex," contained the classic title track, a look at AIDS. During this period, he began performing extensively, and his live shows were always better than the recorded evidence allowed. His first full-length studio LP in nearly ten years, "High Priest," appeared in 1987, with a classic song about the Dalai Lama along with his covers of "Volare" and Lowell Fulsom's 1967 "Make a Little Love." He released an EP called "Black List" in 1989.
During this period, Chilton came to be lionized by a whole new generation of fans and musicians, including the Replacements. To some degree, this adulation was misplaced, based as it was on just a few records by a man clearly unwilling to repeat past successes. Chilton did an album of "standards" called "Cliches" in 1994, performing the songs of his childhood with just an acoustic guitar.
His next album, "A Man Called Destruction," appeared on the revived Ardent label, and was his best effort in years. In all of these recordings, however, there was a curious air of lassitude and cynicism, although he was gradually being recognized as one of the classic rock guitar stylists. He also performed with the original Box Tops as well as with Jody Stephens and Jon Auer and Ken Stringfellow (of the Posies) as Big Star, releasing in 1993 a record of their reunion at the University of Missouri.
He has also appeared on "Darn It!," a collection of poems by Paul Haines set to music by various musicians; a Tom Waits tribute CD; a Who tribute CD; a Beach Boys tribute CD; and a rather awful collaboration with Ben Vaughn and Alan Vega. He has also produced records by Lorette Velvette, a Memphis singer, and the Gories, among others.
Chilton's legacy seems somewhat fragmented. For whatever reason, he could never bring himself to repeat what had worked well for him in the past, being content to work out his obsession with the half-remembered past of regional genre artists. An intermittently great live performer, he has never had the budget or, perhaps, the inclination, to realize his ambitions. But he is one of the most talented rock and roll musicians ever, a brillian chameleon who will be remembered in the popular mind for his vocals on "The Letter," and in the semi-popular mind for "September Gurls" and "In the Street," which is now the theme song for a cheesy Fox television program, "That '70s Show."
Bio written by: eddie |
|
|
|
|
|
Add to Profile
