Fans and fellow musicians leave personal notes on the death of Alex Chilton

Bob Lefsetz wrote a remembrance for Alex Chilton that struck a chord with fans and friends of Alex Chilton first as a musical star with the Box Tops and Big Star. Lefsetz tells how the music hit him, which is how we remember artists. What was I doing the year of that hit. “Who was I going with” kind of remembrance. He makes a passing comment about Chilton’s health and finances.

“We have a fantasy that our heroes live on a higher plane, live a better life than us…that they’re surrounded by bucks and babes.

“But watching Alex Chilton perform you were struck that his life was much more difficult than yours.  He had to go from town to town, playing to appreciative, but tiny audiences, who loved him, but that love won’t keep you warm at night, it won’t pay your bills, it won’t pay your health insurance. 

“My internist told me heart attacks are preventable.  If you get treatment.  Change your diet, take the appropriate drugs, get monitored. But I doubt that Alex Chilton had the cash, never mind the wherewithal. And now he’s gone. Never to be forgotten by a small coterie of fans. Is that enough? I don’t know.

“But I do know that Alex Chilton did it for the rest of us, not brave enough to take the risk, we who prayed in our basements for girlfriends as we studied for the SATs to get into a good college so we could become professionals.  And we love him for it. Bob Lefsetz

Related story – Alex Chilton of Box Tops dead at 59

Today in my email came the replies from Chilton’s fans and friends. I’ll admit to only knowing Alex Chilton’s music casually. What struck me was the genuine responses to his death and music. If you have the time, read to the end for apparently the real story of Chilton’s life.

In the Web 2.0 world, much is made of music for free. If music is going to be free from now on, musicians will live increasingly more desperate lives. It was royalties from his few hits that kept Alex Chilton living as a musician throughout his life. There are only a few musicians who become obscenely rich. Most musicians live modest lives struggling to make a living at what they love to do. We ought to pay them for what they do life everyone else.

Re-Alex Chilton (from Bob Lefsetz’s mailbag)

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.”

… The Replacements ‘Alex Chilton”

Rich Zweiback

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One of the great stories I’ve heard was when Dan Penn told me how he wrote Cry Like A baby-A truly great moment in musical history. Reggie Young was the first guitarist to record the Coral Sitar on a record and it was on Cry Like a Baby. A great song needs a great performance and Alex’s vocal was spot on. I wonder when these classic singers are all gone what we will be left with for the future

Peace, jason miles

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Thanks Bob. I have worked with these guys since 1970 (individually for a bit longer). Today is my second sudden death shock phone about one of the four original members, Alex Chilton, Andy Hummel, Chris Bell, and Jody Stephens. The Chris call was in the wee hours of Dec. 27, 1978; Alex’s call was early evening on March 17, 2010. Too many, too soon.

John E. Fry

Ardent Music LLC

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My personal experience with Chilton: As a HUGE fan of Big Star at 21 years old, my band got the opportunity to open for Chilton at Slim’s in SF in the mid 90s.  Upon meeting him, I told him he was one of my musical heroes; he responded dismissively, “Having heroes is stupid.”

My fragile young ego was devastated; in retrospect I think he was, more or less, right – and was being honest rather than political or nice.  Regardless, I’ve made it a policy since then to (almost) always avoid a personal encounter with someone whose work I really, really respect.  The music is all that matters anyway, and Chilton unquestionably made some amazing, timeless music.

Eli Braden

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NNNOOOO!!!!! He’s been in my car at full volume for the last week!!!!!!

Robot Turbo Marie

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Hopefully Alex benefitted from “In the Street” playing on “That 70’s Show” all those years.

Scott Warren

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I’m sure I’ll be one of many, but I just want to thank you for giving us this news and reminding us of what Alex Chilton did.  I’m of a slightly later generation than you — I fell in love with Alex and Big Star in high school only after finally listenting closely to one of my favorite bands – The Replacements – who were of course in love with them.  (And, full disclosure, my girlfriend got to Big Star first).  In those days, it seemed like bands were trying to educate kids — I fell in love with the music of Gram Parsons after hearing Elvis Costello (one of my other first heros) murder his songs, with the best of intentions.  Are artists still doing that?

In the nineties pop music sucked.  Of course.  Then you listened to Big Star from the 70s – this was real, direct, emotional, unironic, and serious, and gloriously, “pop”, and I was won over.  And I don’t think I’ve listened to music the same way again.  Let’s hope fans begin to expect (again) the same high standards going forward.  Pop music can be, has been, and should be, great.

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Bob – thanks for the rememberance.  Here was a guy that you could feel the hurt in every sung line.  I used to stare at the photo on the cover of the “Feudalist Tarts” album and just wonder what that guy was about.  Last year I played the “Set” album about 10 times in a row in my car player over a month’s time.  Underrated, live-in-the-studio-made-on-the-cheap-with-my-trio album and underrated as a guitarist too.  He plays like an arranger, supporting the tunes with cool chordal moves and scrappy leads, minimalist but complete and satisfying.

Saw him at the House of Blues in L.A. in 1999, must have been about twenty people in the place.

Paul Nelson

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Let’s not forget that another crazy bastard wrote “The Letter” and “Neon Rainbow”: Wayne Carson. He is also a co-writer of “You Were Always On My Mind” and many others. Prob’ly the songwritinest mother I ever met. RIP Alex.

Thomas Whitlock

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I was in SHOCK when I received the tweet tonight regarding his death.  I was really looking forward to seeing Big Star this Saturday night at SXSW. This is just such a loss.  I was especially mortified when I was sharing the news with several people tonight and none of them even knew who he or Big Star was.  That’s just a tragedy!!!

Thanks for acknowledging him tonight.

Mara

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All these artists made brilliant, game-changing, and close to perfect debut albums: Led Zeppelin, Tom Petty, Van Halen, AC/DC, Heart, CSNY (and their solo efforts) Cars, Bruce Springsteen, Jimi Hendrix, The Beatles and Big Star.

Marty Bender

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I read an article (on Goldmine perhaps) years ago, which tells Alex would join oldies tour as a Box Top every summer  and the job for a month or so pays him enough money to live for a year.  So he could pursue his career the way he wanted. And I believe he earned some money from his songwriting royalty in recent years.

So even though he wasn’t rich, did he earn enough money to live a modestly good life?

Tadd

Tokyo, Japan

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Bob,

Wow, did you bring back memories.  I spent time at that same lodge at Bromley….double lace up boots, long straight skis with bear trap bindings, and lots of smelly wool.  Don’t remember the jukebox there, though I did have a similar revelation with the jukebox at Bixler’s Tavern in Reading,PA where I first heard Louie Louie as a tyke.

Andy Davis

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Like all the other fans, the news Of Alex Chilton’s death has saddened my day. But it reminded me again of a moment that made me think music is the most amazing thing ever created. I had been in America about 3 years and just moved to my senior year of high school in Fresno. Went to the football game on the first Friday night and afterwards to the pizza parlour, which was packed with kids from the game. “The Letter” came on the juke box and spontaneously people started singing it until the whole room was singing along. People just glowed and grinned at each other in the magic of the moment and then it was over. As much as I love Big Star, “The Letter” will always melt me.

John Ingham

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Don’t forget “Soul Deep”–the equal of the 3 other great Box Top singles.

Don Friedman

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I think “Way Out West” was Andy Hummel’s, and that’s gotta be him on lead (or Jody Stephens), with Alex on harmonies.  Otherwise, point well taken.

I’m a fan of  all three Big Star records (and Chirs Bell’s solo album), but, MAN, “Cry Like a Baby” is just a killer tune, and one I often heard in the back of my parents’ car as we drove to the pool.  That, the Springfield’s “Bluebird,” and Clapton’s “Lay Down Sally” all seemed to be in heavy rotation in summer when I was a kid. -E

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I was born in ’86. I’ve seen plenty of celebrities bite the dust. I haven’t felt this way about the death of someone I admire since George Harrison’s passing. I realize now what sets George and Alex apart from the rest. They weren’t just rock stars. They were intimate friends.

Samuel Belkin

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Funny, my father used to sing “The Letter” to my sister and I and I never knew that was Alex Chilton.  Now years after discovering Big Star I realize there is a connection to my earliest childhood memories.

Jonathan Briks

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Bob: My song memory from Nutmeg is “Big Girls Don’t Cry”. But I didn’t feed the jukebox. My money went into the pinball machine- dime a game. After a while we got so good we could play for a long time for almost nothing. Was there every Saturday from ’61 to ’69. Always with the jukebox pumping out top 40.

Stanton Lesser

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Bob, Alex was an odd cat, but never less than himself. Every time I was fortunate enough to meet him he was never less than gracious – at one meeting, a few hours before he was to perform at a small club in Charlotte, NC, he invited me to join him at the booth he was relaxing in and we chatted for a little while about friends we had in common.

One mutual friend in particular was of interest to him: back in the mid ’80s I had sold an acoustic Takamine guitar to a friend who had moved to New Orleans, where Chilton had relocated from Memphis some time earlier. Turns out he had met her through the Tav Falco/Panther Burns crowd, and not long after she bought the guitar from me he was approached by MTV to appear on a segment of their “Cutting Edge” program. Not having a decent acoustic guitar himself, Chilton asked her if he could borrow hers – mine – for the taping.

When I told Chilton I got a kick out of seeing him play my guitar on national television, he shook his head and grinned. “I remember that!” he said, laughing. “That was a damn good guitar. I wanted to buy it from her.”

Fred Mills

Managing Editor

Blurt Magazine/Blurt-online.com (ex-Harp)

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wD9mCp8SifM

Yours truly,

Rick Pfamatter

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Wow. I’m reading this, loving every word, not knowing until I reached the end of your post that Alex Chilton was/is dead. Somehow this bit of new news did not make it to me. Until just now. I was always struck by how different his “Box Tops voice” sounded from his “Big Star voice.” I would always tell people it was the same singer and they would never believe me. Just last night I was listening to ‘O My Soul’ as I was working out and thinking, good lord, this song sounds as fresh, vital and raw today as it did when it was first recorded 36 friggin’ years ago. I always loved the fact that many (if not most) of the people I came in contact with never heard of Big Star until I turned them onto the band. There was kind of an ‘exclusivness’ to being in the ‘club’ (same with the Raspberries, but Big Star was always way cooler than the ‘Berries!). Kind of like gaining admittance to a hipper-than-thou NYC club that’s below street level and has no discernable signage out front. God bless Alex Chilton (and Big Star).

Bob Allen, Syracuse

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It was in the late ’60s – I remember my brother-in-law Carl Wilson telling me how much he loved Alex Chilton’s voice on the Box Tops’ “The Letter.”  He talked about him with the same kind of enthusiasm as when he told me about this 16 year old kid from England he had just heard sing while the Beach Boys were on tour there – of course, that was Stevie Winwood on “Gimme’ Some Lovin.'”  The Beach Boys would soon incorporate “The Letter” into their own live setlist and Carl sang lead – quite a testament to Alex.  The Box Tops eventually went on tour as an opening act for the Beach Boys and I had a chance to spend some time with Alex and the band since I was on that same tour not as a performing musician, but just for fun – just hanging out.  I thought he was a great guy with a strong personality and very direct in conversation.  He had star quality.

RIP Alex.

Billy Hinsche

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I’m too young to have discovered Chilton/Big Star in my teens but I did find my way thanks to Paul Westerberg’s “Alex Chilton.” Chilton and Chris Bell wrote some amazing songs, I don’t think there’s a crap song on Big Star’s first three albums. I look forward to comments from your readers. Losing Chilton and Mark Linkhous in the same month has been sad, but the music lives on and I hope more discover these great songs.

Gary Shindler Jr.

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Bob, there are no more jukeboxes in JCCs, now we have Radio Disney, the Disney Channel and Ke$ha, oh joy.

Ian Heritch

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Thanks for sharing your thoughts on Alex, Bob. Sad news indeed. Walking around numb last night coming in from a gig in Houston and read your words.

I was reminiscing with my manager this AM, on how in 1985, as a college kid in Portland, he booked Alex and his band in for $150.00.

Nothing makes sense. Everything is ridiculous.

A couple years ago my old band Green On Red played on a festival in Spain with Big Star, Alex introduced a new song and said, “This is off the new record, people hate it, the critics say its horrible…. don’t worry, in 30 years you’ll love it!” Alex: iconoclast to the end.

Don’t want to jam up your in-box, for more of my thoughts and memories of Alex “the invisible man with the visible voice” Chilton, I put down some words a while back here: http://chuckprophet.com/blog/alex_chilton/

Keep fighting the good fight, amigo,

–Chuck Prophet

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It was a sad moment last night when I heard the news. #1 Record came out the first year I worked record retail. That is the year I immersed myself in the music as i had not grown up listening to the radio. I was just starting out my senior year of high school and seen my first concert (Leon Russell with opener Nitzinger). Big Star was an extension of great pop songs of the 60’s. Big Star was the band the people who worked in record stores liked but the public did not embrace. There must have been more promos of Big Star in circulation than sold copies. In the 70’s I saw plenty of copies of the first two albums in used bins. Then something changed. It might of been from people buying the cheap used copies and getting hooked on the hooks that graced each song and then telling their friends. The albums were out of print so taping and passing on to another was the way music was shared back then. Then 3rd album came out. I think it opened a few more people to Big Star to the band and re-issues of the first two stared to appear.

Over the years, Big Stars music spread but it never got them past cult statis. Alex Chilton kept it coming with many solo albums, each containing a few gems but nothing quite like Big Star or the hits from the Box Tops. Last night I got as many calls and e-mails from people of his death in a 1/2 hour than I did when Michael jackson passed. Alex Chilton and his music meant a lot to his fans and his fans always knew who the other Alex Chilton fans were. And for us fans, it was a sad moment.

Terry Currier

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Great piece.  “The Letter” has much significance for me as well.  It was the Summer of ’68, I was the Bass Player/ Harmony Singer in a popular Mid-West band out of Chicago, For Days & A Night, we did Pop and Soul.  We must have played “The Letter” 500 times…always looked forward to it coming up on the Set List. We would always “step it up a notch” energy-wise when we played it.  At the time, we thought The Box Tops were a black soul group !  It  really got the crowd goin’ too.

“Lonely days are gone, I’m a comin’ home…”

R I P Alex !

“Hurricane” Bob Calvin

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Box Tops played at my junior high school, I saw them on a double bill with Archie Bell and the Drells

Archie Bell played first

I was in 7th or 8th grade, so memory is a little fuzzy of the whole thing Neither played very long, and there was a riot at the school afterwards, so it was the last concert we ever had there

Joe Guiliano

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Bob,

I have a great story about Alex Chilton.

I was at a dinner with the McGathy gang (maybe) in 1995 at Gavin in NOLA.

Out of nowhere, a guy says, “I would like you to meet Alex Chilton.”

I thought I was going to freak out.

I’ve met lots of artists……It could have been Elvis, Lou Reed, Bowie, but for some reason, shaking his hand was an enormous feeling.  I loved Big Star.

Later that night at a party, he was signing autographs of his CD “Cliches.”

I got my copy and stood in line like everyone else.

When I got up to meet him, he looked and talked like he had ingested a lot of booze.

He had one of those silver paint pens (the ones with the spray paint ball in it) and his ash on his smoke was reaching that point right before it falls.  I joked about the pen and he said “Class maaan….class”    The ash falls right on his lap.   I laughed and just asked if he was ok and he said: “Class maaaan….class.”

M. Murdock

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Bob,

Thirteen has been on every mixtape I’ve ever had the guts to send ….worked every time 🙂

Ric A

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Your take on Alex Chilton was as appreciated as it was perceptive. I did a part-time gig with him for the last nine years as a Box Top. We never rehearsed. Ever. I learned the songs on airplanes that day early in 2001 while flying from Nashville to Winnipeg. Learned a few new ones over the years at various soundchecks. I got to know Alex pretty well over the years, and always looked forward to seeing him and hearing his take on various issues going on in the world. He was aware of everything going on around him, and usually had a copy of the New Yorker tucked under his arm. Was a huge fan of contemporary art and spent a lot of his time while traveling hanging out in museums.

I just want to say that you’re right about his Health Care issues. He had limited financial means for many years, and once told me he hadn’t seen a dentist in over 10 years. This changed after he started having painful issues with gum disease and his teeth. I think there’s a connection there with heart problems that probably was to blame for his early, sudden death. His teeth problems were ongoing the last three years or so. Very painful. One more example (as if we needed any) that we need Single Payer Health Care in this country. Alex spent months at a time in Europe after getting over there for gigs. Maybe it was partly because they take care of people better there, and value their artists more than we do here in the US.

Alex was bright, perceptive, cynical, opinionated, quick-witted and friendly; and he was equipped with a BS detector shield that people sometimes mistook for callousness or even meanness. He was not mean. But he was fiercely unlike anyone you’ve ever met. He unashamedly lived rock and roll.

Today, it seems an era has come to an end. Very, very sad.

Barry Walsh

www.barrywalshmusic.com

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I can’t tell you how much I loved Alex Chilton!

Huge fan and even had him play @ my fraternity house during college back in 1988.

Actually recorded that show off of the mixing console and located the cassette tape today.

I was the social chairman back then, so I booked all our bands (imagine that).

He asked me to get him some pot, and I said why of course, no problem…

Brought him a bag and he checked it out and politely passed…?

I was dashed and felt like I had failed one of my musical heroes.

A few years later I was booking a venue in town and brought him in.

He again, asked for some pot, and on that trip and he said it was great!

Nice to be redeemed by the one and the only Alex Chilton…

Thought you might appreciate this humorous story on such a sad day.

Cass Scripps

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Holy shit. I can’t believe he is gone. Even in the modern age we got to listen to the classic Big Star songs on  headphones alone during snowy winters or standing in blazing sunshine. What a hero to every artist. I think the Replacements made the ultimate tribute to him http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTSJYZyouek

Andy

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For me growing up in the 70’s, listening to those first two Big Star albums that I bought in the cut-out bin at Odyssey Records in Las Vegas, I thought I was the only person in the world who knew about this band. We certainly didn’t hear them on the radio.

So thanks for your insightful words as to why Big Star (and Alex Chilton) matter in the history of rock and roll.

Best,

Jeff Fey

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Couple of thoughts, Bob.

First this from the USA Today obit:

Chilton said in a 1987 interview with The Associated Press that he didn’t mind flying under the radar with Big Star and later as a solo artist.

“What would be ideal would be to make a ton of money and have nobody know about you,” he said. “Fame has a lot of baggage to carry around. I wouldn’t want to be like Bruce Springsteen. I don’t need that much money and wouldn’t want to have 20 bodyguards following me.””If I did become really popular, the critics probably wouldn’t like me all that much,” he said. “They like to root for the underdog.”

And this interview with Ricky Gervais on Fresh Air w/Terry Gross a few weeks ago (NPR) where he said:

“I’d rather do stuff that makes a big connection with a few people than a small connection with loads. I’d rather this be a few people’s favorite show, than millions and millions of people’s 10th favorite show. Because what’s the point otherwise? If you can’t do something that’s different enough and peculiarly yours, then just join a committee, really.”

Don’t we love those who do it for those reasons rather than the Michael Jacksons and Madonnas of the world. There was always something so pure in Chilton’s music, and maybe that’s what we respond to. I’m a musician for a living in Syracuse, NY, and still sing Chilton’s Big Star and Box Tops tunes nightly. I never tire of them. Thanks for the moving tribute to a true nonpareil.

Gary Frenay

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Wow.

I didn’t know he died.

I am going to close my office door now and sit here and cry for awhile.  And think about the awesome, intransigent beauty of his work and his sometimes utterly transcendent performances.  And pray for his family and the people who loved him. And for an obscenely wealthy country that allows so many of its artists (and virtually all of it poets) to die from the effects of poverty.

“Children by the millions wait for Alex Chilton to come around.  Singing I’m in love; what’s that song?  I’m in love, with that song.”

Rosemary Carroll

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I’ve never replied to anything you’ve written, but when I saw the subject line I was compelled to write.

The news of Alex Chilton’s death hit me like a ton of bricks.

It’s gonna be a long, Big Star kind of day.

RIP William Alexander Chilton

Josh Miller

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Thanks Bob. I’ve loved the song Thirteen since I first heard Evan Dando’s live version of it.

It’s an all time classic, and Alex will live forever in his songs, fortunately.

Tom

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Bob,

I remember seeing Alex fronting the Boxtops at the 2006 Moondog Coronation Concert in Cleveland.  He sounded great but looked in poor health.  At first glance, his clothing looked like off the rack Salvation Army that were too large and slept in.  Still, I enjoyed his performance.  I’m glad I was able to capture it to share on youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trRkSFyA7Ns

RIP Alex.

Gene Bonos

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Bob-

I can’t believe this – I will never forget putting Revolution on that very same Juke Box at Bromley.  When the guitar chords hit in the intro of the tune it seemed a number of adults were visibly startled…all because I wanted to hear The Beatles’ Revolution- a moment in time as vivid for me as ever 40 years later!!

Meanwhile, even as a young man,  Alex Chilton had one of the truly distinctive voices of rock filled with Soul, Passion and Life- and I know I invested some of my Dad’s change to hear The Letter as well!!

Steve Townsend

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I just read your letter on Alex Chilton. I found out about Big Star about 10 years ago. Its disheartening to think how big Big Star should have been and wasn’t. When music is that melodic, beautiful and honest you would think it would connect with most people. I can’t describe the feeling of listening to “September Gurls”. Its almost too beautiful to listen to yet its still a great rock song. Anyways, I hope you continue to write for as long as possible because more people need to understand what’s happening in the music biz so something can be done about it.

Regards, ?Jason Schell

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Thanks for your insightful tribute about Alex Chilton’s life and career … a true talent that never achieved the universal respect he so rightly deserved. As a young agent in Georgia, Alex Chilton / Box Tops were one of the first acts that I represented. The 1 min. 52 sec. “The Letter” dominated the airwaves, not only because it was a quality track, but because jocks needed a fill-in prior to a commercial or news break. Then came the successful follow-ups, “Cry Like A Baby”& “Neon Rainbow”.  I continued booking them after I accepted a job in New York at a major agency, but this was the time of message & protest that was changing musical tastes and society ie., Cream,  Donovan,  Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan and The Box Tops were considered bubblegum, not “hip.”  I regret to say I lost touch with Alex, but like you have said,  he continued creating music, his way, with Radio City and Big Star.

Bill Hall

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Hi Bob,

Fell hard for Alex Chilton’s vocals on “The Letter” and “Cry Like a Baby” upon first hearing them (likely on AM radio — either riding in family car or curled up with a small, tinny, transistor radio in a pink plastic case). Those two songs plus “Thirteen” and “September Gurls” still stop me in my tracks.

Following my heart attack at age 48 (100% blocked LAD – the “widow-maker”), my cardiologist noted it’s only a matter of time before every American turning 50 is routinely prescribed Lipitor as a preventative.

In my case, it clearly needed to have happened much earlier (though no one would have suspected given outward appearance of health and fitness). My current state of well-being is due to a highly skilled surgeon and, frankly, good timing. Having been born 10 years after the first boomers, I’m the beneficiary of medical innovations developed in response to that group’s demands for cure-alls for aging, including heart disease. (Truly, I could serve as the poster child for better living through chemistry.)

Unfortunately, none of that did Alex Chilton a damn bit of good.

Thanks. – Betsy Alperin (age 53), Rockville, MD

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I saw Big Star about 5 years ago or so at the Fillmore in San Francisco. Chilton rarely toured. The first 2/3 of the show were unreal. The best show I’d ever seen. Then…like clockwork…he imploded. Stopped songs in the middle. Took ‘requests’ from the audience that the band couldn’t play. Started go get fidgety and weird. Trainwreck territory. It was a metaphor for his career…he was so uncomfortable with success or perfection…. at least that’s my take.

Still one of the best shows I’ve ever seen. And his music is still some of the best ever made.

Michael Greenberg

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I first learned of Alex Chilton and Big Star as Music director for your college radio station WRMC – FM in the 80’s.

I found him through the trusted voice and  of Paul Westerberg.

You had to work to find his music – and when you heard it, it went straight through you.  It felt so effortless and real.  universal in appeal…  Chilton was one of the few – those who inspired and were just who they actually were – regardless of what the industry wanted them to be.

Rick Holzman

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Bob, thanks for this letter.  I punched up all these numbers on youtube as I read.  The Letter and Neon Rainbow are amazing, I haven’t heard anything that immediately grabbed my attention like they did in a long while.

Funnily enough, the other guitarist in my band is a huge Big Star fan…years ago he always tried to convince me to do a cover of Thirteen, and I hated it!  I never bothered to actually listen to the original, which I now realize is also fantastic.

best,

Ados Watson

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Don’t forget that he produced The Cramps. That alone makes him a legend. He certainly seemed like vulnerable guy.

Neil Wedd

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Bob,

Rummaging around the virtual Alex Chilton attic on hearing the sad news of his death, I stumbled on the following nugget from Dan Penn (on his website, http://www.danpenn.com/dan.htm). As you noted, Penn produced “The Letter,”

as well as “Cry Like a Baby.”

“Everybody thinks I coaxed  into doing a lot of vocal tricks, but it’s not true–he just had it. The only thing I ever told that young man to do was sing ‘aeroplane’ instead of ‘airplane’ on ‘The Letter’-I was just tryin’ to make it flow better.”

He did, and it does.

Best,

David Ruben

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From: Bruce Eaton

Re: Alex Chilton – YOU ARE SO WRONG!!!!

Bob –

I’ve known Alex since 1979.  I wrote the book on Radio City for Continuum’s 33 1/3 series that was published last year (which involved probably the last extensive interviews he ever gave).  You have jumped to so many conclusions regarding Alex that you ought to have your laptop yanked for a year. I don’t even know where to begin except to say that you couldn’t be more wrong about Alex, his life, and why he lived it the way he did.  And I also don’t want to his reveal personal details just to counter some guy with a big megaphone who is loose on the keys.  But I’ll tell you this:

After dropping out of the music business in late ’81 (I set up his last tour), moving to New Orleans, getting sober, and returning to the stage in late ’83, Alex did exactly what he wanted to do.  He wanted to play the music he wanted to play his way.  If that meant playing obscure covers in small clubs, he was cool with that.  He saw himself more as an itinerant jazz musician than a rock star (remember, he turned down a deal from Elektra in the ’80s).   He wanted control over his music and didn’t want to deal with major-label types.  He had no interest in the rock star life.  Players like Zoot Sims or Sonny Stitt were role models, not any rock band.

He and I always talked about money and health.  Alex lived a very frugal lifestyle.  A small home in N.O. that his brother had owned was completely paid for.  Ditto for a used Volvo.  He had no debts.  No alimony.  The songwriting royalties from In The Streets being used on That 70’s Show had given him a certain comfort level.  He was anything but broke.  Big Star dates and Europe were also good for him.  John Fry at Ardent was ever-vigilant about getting Big Star its financial due.  Alex didn’t believe that living on a higher plane necessarily involved “bucks and babes”.

Alex was also very health conscious – except for smoking, and I suspect that’s what snuffed him out.  One of the last days we spent together we had lunch at Whole Foods and virtually the entire conversation was about our various health routines.  Alex was an extremely intelligent and informed person.  He had no qualms about going to a doctor.  Again, I know more than you ever will know on this subject but don’t feel like sharing details that I consider private. But to imply that he was a poor, rundown man without the mental or financial wherewithal to go to a doctor is scurrilous.  He smoked. He’d probably been told 1000 times that that wasn’t a good thing. Sorry to disappoint you Bob, but Obamacare wouldn’t have saved him.  Alex made his decisions and did things his way.

If you read my book (feel free to take it out of a library…at a time like this I don’t care about selling copies but they probably have it at Book Soup – it made their bestseller list) you’ll get a much different picture of who Alex was and why he did things the way he did in his own words. Contrary to the common public perception, he was a real gentleman.  And for all the talk about indies and artists taking control – they’re all still all trying to “make it.”  Alex had transcended that.  Hard to understand if you’re someone wondering why he didn’t try to build on Big Star and ride it to the top but he knew that they were a comet that had passed on to another universe and he had other musical worlds to explore.

Have to get going so I’ll put up my thoughts about him on my Big Star blog later on.  Needless to say, a sad day.

Best regards,

Bruce Eaton

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Oh for fuck’s sake Bob! I didn’t know Alex Chilton had died until just this second, reading your newsletter… And I don’t know how to FEEL… So I’m sitting at my desk, listening to Big Star’s “Feel” – “I feel like I’m dying, I’m never going to live again…” – and I’m pissed off and deeply sad.

I was lucky enough to have been turned on to the first two Big Star albums by friends who were way cooler than I was. I bought the British reissue of #1 Record/Radio City as an import in the late seventies and was aware of the Box Tops connection, always amazed that Chilton cut those legendary Memphis vocal tracks when he was still a teenager. I bought the third album (Sister Lovers) in a cut-out bin and even loved that jagged genius, knowing that the band had already been relegated to, well, the cut-out bin.

I’ve never stopped listening to those albums and Back of a Car, Mod Lang, Feel, Thirteen, O My Soul, September Gurls, wound up on almost every serious playlist I’ve ever put together. In fact, a band I loved dearly in Halifax (Cool Blue Halo) titled their first album “Kangaroo” after a Big Star tune… So much great – unappreciated – music and light-years ahead of its time. Listening to Big Star’s output, even now, is to presage virtually everything that’s come since, of a certain worth (Wilco, Jayhawks, Matthew Sweet, The Posies, Dwight Twilley, Tom Petty, and countless others). At least most of them have acknowledged that debt (especially The Posies) and those albums still resonate like a perfect, power-pop beacon for people that can’t live without that kind of music – like me.

The death of any artist is tragic but the last time I felt like this was when I heard Peter Ham from Badfinger was dead. A punch to the head and the heart because neither of them ever got what they deserved from a public kept blissfully ignorant of their worth. At least we – those of us with an ounce of taste – have always known what they were worth. The world is now short another great one, not that this news will cause even a ripple in the quagmire that now passes for “popular” culture.

Thanks for giving me bad news that I wouldn’t get otherwise. I will await the tribute album that needs to happen.

Mike Campbell

Halifax, NS

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