Alex Chilton

Alex Chilton (born Dec. 28, 1950, Memphis, Tenn., U.S.—died March 17, 2010, New Orleans, La.) was an American singer and songwriter who, as frontman of the seminal power pop band Big Star, crafted a body of work whose influence far outstripped its volume.

Chilton was age 16 when he began his musical career as the lead singer of the Memphis blue-eyed soul group the DeVilles. The quintet achieved a measure of local fame, eventually coming to the attention of American Sound Studios executive Chips Moman and songwriter Dan Penn. Penn produced the group—now renamed the Box Tops—on the song “The Letter.” “The Letter” was a surprise hit, spending four weeks at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1967. It later resurfaced as a cover version by Joe Cocker. The Box Tops returned to the top 10 with “Cry like a Baby,” but the group experienced diminishing success over the following years before disbanding in 1970.

In the wake of the Box Tops’ demise, Chilton moved to New York City, but a career as a solo artist failed to materialize. He returned to Memphis in 1971, where he joined fellow songwriter Chris Bell to form the core of Big Star. The quartet released #1 Record in 1972, and the album’s exquisitely crafted power pop met with critical acclaim. Melancholy lyrics, sweet harmonies, and jangly guitars combined on tracks such as “The Ballad of El Goodo” to create a sound that was widely described as ahead of its time. Distribution problems hampered the album’s commercial success, however, and Bell exited the band prior to the release of the group’s follow-up, Radio City (1974). Perhaps the standout track from Radio City was “September Gurls,” now widely acclaimed as a Chilton masterpiece that anticipated the work of artists such as Tom Petty and Cheap Trick. Big Star’s final album, Third (also released as Sister Lovers; 1978), was a dark, meandering affair that lacked the focus of its predecessors. In spite of this, songs such as “Kangaroo” offered a glimpse of the noise-pop sound that would emerge in the 1980s with groups such as the Jesus and Mary Chain and My Bloody Valentine.

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Chilton embarked on a solo career in the late 1970s, and he worked as a producer, recording the first single for the “psychobilly” (a fusion of punk and rockabilly) group the Cramps. Chilton’s solo albums, which included Like Flies on Sherbert (1979) and High Priest (1987), met with mixed reviews, and the legacy of Big Star overshadowed much of his work throughout the 1980s and 1990s. Chilton seemed to embrace this fact, and he sometimes turned his back on music entirely. After a battle with alcoholism in the early 1980s, he moved to New Orleans, where he washed dishes and worked odd jobs to support himself. The advent of alternative rock during this era saw the emergence of R.E.M., Teenage Fanclub, and the Replacements—groups that were unabashedly creating music in the spirit of Big Star. The Replacements went so far as to name a song after Chilton, and the lyric “Children by the million sing for Alex Chilton” captured the newfound appreciation for Chilton’s groundbreaking work. Chilton essentially retired from recording new material in the 21st century, but he remained a prolific live performer until his death.