Alex Chilton (b.
December 28,
1950, in
Memphis, Tennessee) is an
American songwriter, guitarist, singer and producer.
Alex Chilton grew up in a musical family; his father played jazz. Influenced by both Chet Baker and the Beatles, he started singing and playing guitar at an early age. As singer for The Box Tops, he enjoyed, at age sixteen, a number-one international hit, "The Letter." The Box Tops went on to have several other major chart hits, including "Cry Like a Baby" (1968) and "Soul Deep" (1969). Feeling increasingly powerless in the Box Tops, who were essentially the brainchild of producer-songwriter Dan Penn , he left the group in 1969 to begin performing as a solo artist. The Ardent Records label released 1970, an album of material recorded in that year, twenty-six years after the fact.
After a period in New York City, during which he worked on his guitar technique and singing style, in 1971 he formed Big Star in Memphis, with his friend Chris Bell. Since that time he has performed both as a solo artist and in the reformed Big Star and Box Tops. He released in 1978 an influential single, "Bangkok," backed with a cover of the Seeds' "Can't Seem to Make You Mine.
Living again in New York, and playing shows at venues such as CBGB's, he made the acquaintance of the Cramps, a group interested in early rock and roll and rockabilly. He brought them to Memphis, where he produced the songs that would appear on their Gravest Hits EP and their Songs the Lord Taught Us LP. He has produced albums by several other artists, including the Detroit group The Gories. In 1979 Chilton released, in a limited edition of 500 copies, an album entitled Like Flies on Sherbert, produced by Chilton with Jim Dickinson at Phillips Recording and Ardent Studios, which featured covers of songs by artists as disparate as the Carter Family, Jimmy C. Newman , Ernest Tubb, and K. C. and the Sunshine Band, along with several originals. Sherbert has since been reissued several times.
He also co-founded, played guitar with, and produced some albums for Tav Falco's Panther Burns, an avant-garde rockabilly group, beginning in 1979. He toured regularly in the early 1980s with Panther Burns and occasionally as a solo artist, as documented in his 1982 solo release Live in London.
He moved to New Orleans in the early 1980s but continued to record much of his later solo work in Memphis. After a period of inactivity during which he worked at jobs outside music, he released in 1985 an EP, Feudalist Tarts, featuring his versions of songs by Carla Thomas, Slim Harpo, and Willie Tee, and another EP of three originals entitled No Sex in 1986. His EP Black List contained a cover of Ronnie and the Daytonas ' "Little GTO" along with an original song that referenced Tammy Faye Bakker, "Guantanamerika." Rock critic Robert Christgau, reviewing Black List for the Village Voice, called Chilton "the Shakespeare, or Gregory Corso, of the EP."
Touring and recording as a solo artist in the mid-1980s with bassists Ron Easley and Rene Coman and drummers Richard Dworkin and Doug Garrison, he gained a reputation for his eclectic taste in cover versions, his guitar work, and his laconic stage presence. His solo albums include High Priest (1987), A Man Called Destruction (1995), and Live in Anvers (2004).
Among Chilton's songs is "In the Street," which (in an altered and shortened version recorded by Cheap Trick) became the theme song for That '70s Show. His compositions have been recorded by many artists, including This Mortal Coil, Jeff Buckley, Yo La Tengo and His Name Is Alive.
Critical opinion of Alex Chilton's solo work is divided. Brian Hogg, writing the liner notes for a reissue of the first two Big Star albums, maintains that Chilton, like Rod Stewart, "betrayed" his talent during the course of his solo career. Like Flies on Sherbert, Hogg writes, "showed a talent falling apart, eliciting a voyeuristic reponse rather than that of excitement." Christgau, reviewing the 19 Years compilation, says "If Chilton had ever figured out his calling, he would have made a living at it; he's the EP king because coherence and endurance mean less to him than quantum physics (which he no doubt studied on his own when that dishwashing job dried up)."
The Replacements' song "Alex Chilton" imagines a world in which "children by the million sing for Alex Chilton when he comes 'round."
Solo discography
- One Day in New York - (Ork, 1977)
- Singer Not the Song (EP) - (Ork, 1977)
- Bangkok/Can't Seem to Make You Mine (single) - (Fun, 1978)
- Like Flies on Sherbert - (Peabody, 1979)
- Bach's Bottom - (Line, 1981)
- Live in London - (Aura, 1982)
- Feudalist Tarts (EP) - (New Rose/Big Time), 1985; reissued 1994 on Razor & Tie)
- Lost Decade - (Fan Club, 1985)
- Document - (Aura, 1985)
- No Sex (EP) - (New Rose/Big Time, 1986; reissued 1994 on Razor & Tie)
- Stuff - (New Rose, 1987)
- High Priest (New Rose/Big Time, 1987; reissued 1994 on Razor & Tie)
- Black List (EP) - (New Rose, 1989; reissued 1994 on Razor & Tie)
- 19 Years: A Collection of Alex Chilton - (Rhino, 1991)
- Clichés - (Ardent, 1994)
- A Man Called Destruction - (Ardent, 1995)
- 1970 - (Ardent, 1996)
- Top 30 - (Last Call, 1997)
- Cubist Blues, with Ben Vaughan and Alan Vega - (Discovery, 1997)
- Loose Shoes and Tight Pussy - (Last Call, 1999) -- aka Set (Bar/None, 2000)
- Live in Anvers - (Last Call, 2004)
References
Christgau, Robert. Christgau's Consumer Guide: Rock Albums of the '90s. (2000). New York: St. Martin's Griffin. ISBN 0-312-24560-2.
Hogg, Brian. Liner notes for #1 Record/Radio City. Big Beat Records. 1990.
External link
