Alex Chilton
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Alex Chilton (born named William Alexander Chilton, on December 28, 1950, in Memphis, Tennessee) is an American songwriter, guitarist, singer and producer best known for his work with the pop-music bands the Box Tops and Big Star. Chilton's early commercial sales success in the 1960s as a teen vocalist for the Box Tops was not repeated in later years with Big Star and in his indie music solo career on small labels, but he did draw a loyal following in the indie and alternative music fields.
Chilton said in the September 1994 issue of Guitar Player that he considers himself a "musical performer, not a songwriter" and that some of his songs sound only "half-baked" to him. Nonetheless, his compositions have been performed by a number of artists, including This Mortal Coil, The Bangles, Wilco, Graham Coxon, Garbage, Son Volt, Counting Crows, Elliott Smith, Jeff Buckley, Superdrag, Evan Dando, Cat Power, Yo La Tengo, Placebo, Xiu Xiu, and His Name Is Alive. The Replacements wrote the song "Alex Chilton" in his honor on their 1987 Pleased to Meet Me album.
1970s career
After a period in New York City, during which he worked on his guitar technique and singing style, (some of which was believed to have influenced by a chance meeting Alex had with Roger McGuinn at a friend's apartment in New York, and Chilton was subsequently impressed with McGuinn's singing & playing), Chilton returned to Memphis in 1971 and joined the power-pop group Big Star, with Chris Bell, recording at engineer John Fry's Ardent Studios. The group's recordings met little commercial success but established his reputation as a rock singer and songwriter; later alternative music bands like R.E.M. would praise the group as a major influence. During this period he also occasionally recorded with Rosebrough as a group they called The Dolby Fuckers; some of their studio experimentation was included in Big Star's Radio City, including the recording of "Mod Lang." Rosebrough occasionally worked on later recordings with Chilton, including on Big Star's Third album and the 1975 solo recording Bach's Bottom. Chilton and Bell went on to co-write "In The Street" (best known as the theme song of That '70s Show).
Moving back to New York in 1977, Chilton performed as "Alex Chilton and the Cossacks" with a lineup that included Chris Stamey (later of The dB's) and Richard Lloyd of Television at venues like CBGB, recording an influential solo single, released in 1978: "Bangkok," backed with a cover of the Seeds' "Can't Seem to Make You Mine." This period learning from the New York CBGB scene marked the beginning of a key change for Chilton's personal musical interests away from multi-layered pop studio recording standards toward a looser, animated punk performance style often recorded in one take and featuring fewer overdubs. There he made the acquaintance of punk band the Cramps. 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.
In 1979 Chilton released, in a limited edition of 500 copies, an album called Like Flies on Sherbert, produced by Chilton with Jim Dickinson at Phillips Recording and Ardent Studios, which featured his own interpretations 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. While criticized by some as a druggy mess, this album is considered by many to be a lo-fi masterpiece. Sherbert, which included backing work by Memphis musicians including Rosebrough, Memphis drummer Ross Johnson, and Lisa Aldridge, has since been reissued several times. Beginning in 1979 he also co-founded, played guitar with, and produced some albums for Tav Falco's Panther Burns, which began as an offbeat rock-and-roll group deconstructing blues, country, and rockabilly music.
