R.I.P. Alex Chilton

A couple of days ago, on St Patrick’s Day, Power Pop legend Alex Chilton suffered a heart attack and died in New Orleans, Louisiana at age 59.  I don’t think a lot of you who read this blog are old enough to even begin to think about the thinning of the ranks that goes on once you start talking 50 years old and up.   My own father was dead at 54.  I don’t have any health problems or family history that leads me to believe that I’m going anywhere anytime soon, but stories like these give you pause just the same.  59 years is much too young to have your ticket punched.   Alex Chilton was an almost mythical figure with a cult like following.   When 80′s Indie darlings The Replacements immortalized him by naming a song from 1987′s Pleased To Meet Me after him his legend grew even more.  I’m not even sure I completely understand it myself, but I can tell you that it does exist.   A musician friend of mine on Facebook trumpeted the news yesterday.  I hadn’t even heard yet.  Shows you how plugged in I am sometimes no?   I must have had NCAA basketball on the brain.

Alex Chilton first rose to prominance as the lead singer of a Memphis, TN Pop & Soul band called The Box Tops.   Technically that band was called The Devilles for a time, but they chose to change their name to avoid confusion with another band.   In mid 1967  The Box Tops covered a song by a relatively little known artist named Wayne Carson Thompson called “The Letter.”  The song clocked in at under two minutes, but it was an International smash and finished as the #1 song of 1967.  #1.  Does that register?  We’re talking about competition that included Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones and The Beatles.  It was preceded by Bobbie Gentry’s “Ode To Billie Joe” and followed by Lulu’s “To Sir With Love” at #1 on the Billboard Charts.   Man that was a long time ago!  What great songs.  I know I have mentioned this in past posts, but “The Letter” was my first 45 RPM.  I played that thing so much I thought my father was going to resort to violence at one point to get me to move on to something else.  When that something else turned out to be Tommy James & The Shondells’ “Crimson and Clover,” we didn’t talk much after that.

The Box Tops had a number of hits including “Soul Deep, Neon Rainbow, I Met Her in Church, She Shot a Hole in My Soul and Cry Like a Baby.”  I knew every note of every song after buying their greatest hits record a year or two later.  “The Letter” was a song with a lot of imagery and sound effects of airplanes.  The gist of the story was that the some guy’s gal had written him a letter and he was now headed home to see her.   The song was so short there wasn’t a lot of time to think about anything…where had he been?  Had she dumped him and he subsequently left town?   It really didn’t matter.  Alex Chilton, at 16 YEARS OF AGE (hello Stevie Winwood), with a little coaching and an alleged 30 plus takes, laid down a gravelly ode to the power and anguish of estranged love and the drop everything adrenaline of being taken back into the fold.  I wouldn’t know myself (unfortunately I was banished forever whenever that happened to me), but that must be the ultimate.   Back home again.  Lonely days are gone, I’m a goin’ home, ’cause my baby she wrote me a letter.   Everybody who lived in the 60′s knew the words to that song.  You had to.   Even though we complain about tight radio formats today, it was worse back then.  We’re talking AM radio here.  AM radio.   Just think about that.  The Box Tops version of “The Letter” (it has been covered many times…most notably by Joe Cocker on his 1970 masterpiece Mad Dogs & Englishmen) was voted #363 on Rolling Stone’s famous 2004 list of the 500 Greatest Songs of all time.   Not too shabby.

By 1970 The Box Tops’ run was over.  The group was full of teenagers being fleeced by management, according to our friends at Wikipedia, and they weren’t writing much of their own music.  Alex Chilton had other ideas so the band eventually dissolved.   Chilton began performing solo, but eventually teamed up with performers Chris Bell, Jody Stephens and Andy Hummel to form Big Star in 1971.  The group only lasted three years, but the reverence afforded their work is amazing.   Some of you may be familiar with the song “In The Street,” co-written by Chilton with Chris Bell, from their first album in 1972 titled #1 Record, as the theme song to the hit TV show That 70′s Show.   I only recently read that band’s name, Big Star, was sort of “borrowed” from a local super market chain in Memphis at the time called Big Star Markets.  Not only that, they snagged that chain’s logo too, which was an over-sized neon star with “Big Star,”  also in neon,  written inside of it.  They allegedly dropped the “Star” (going with a neon star with just the “Big” inside of it) so that the chain couldn’t pursue them for copyright infringement.   Very interesting fun fact no?

In 1974, after releasing two albums (eventually a third was finally released in 1978 followed by a Live record in 1992), the first installment of Big Star was no more.   The legend, however, lives on despite miserable sales at the time.  They were allegedly plagued by signing a record deal with Stax subsidiary Ardent Records.  Apparently the label didn’t know how to market them.   I don’t know if they can be credited with inventing Power Pop, but they are certainly in the discussion.  “September Gurls,” from 1974′s Radio City, is probably their most famous song, and serves as a pristine example of the Power Pop Blue Eyed Soul genre.  Many famous bands, such as R.E.M. and The Replacements, began citing Big Star as a major influence and Alex Chilton became a bit bigger than life it seemed.   I didn’t follow his solo career very closely, I’ll be the first to admit, but he spent a lot of time in New York mentoring, working with and producing  younger musicians such as Rockabilly legends The Cramps.  I’m sure that has a lot to do with why his legend doesn’t seem to want to die all these years later.   Ironically, the reunited Big Star was scheduled to play the famous Austin, TX music festival South by Southwest on March 20th when he died.

Paul Westerberg, as the lead singer of The Replacements, croaked “I never travel far, without a little Big Star” in their song “Alex Chilton.”  I thought that was very cool and I’m sure it means a lot to this day to his surviving family.   Rest in peace Alex.   You left us way too young.

The Box Tops – The Letter.mp3

Big Star – In The Street.mp3

Big Star – September Gurls.mp3

The Replacements – Alex Chilton.mp3

The Replacements – Alex Chilton.mp3 YSI

Buy or download Alex Chilton’s Top 30 from Amazon here.