Alex Chilton

[smark21]

What are people's opinions about Alex Chilton, lead singer of The Box Tops who went on to front Big Star in the early 70s as well as other projects until he passed away in 2010. I've started reading a biography of Chilton, Man Called Destruction, and it's quite good.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIWY8UyW9bw

[splanky]

Always liked that song and his delivery though it's obvious he didn't have exactly the most
melodious voice and I know nothing about him as a person. I also liked Al Green's cover of
The Letter and third, I've always wished that John Mellenchamp had covered it , because
he sounded quite a bit like Alex...

[motony]

I really liked his voice on "Cry Like A Baby" the 2nd hit for the "Box Tops". I would probably find his book or biography interesting to find out, why , with such a voice nothing else happened big for him [[as far as I know).

[smark21]

Well I'm up to Alex recording Cry Like a Baby and dealing with sudden chart success thanks to the smash hit The Letter. Last night I downloaded the first two albums by his early 70s band, Big Star. Both excellent, though very different from Box Tops. My understanding that one reason why Big Star didn't hit was that they were on Stax subsidiary label Ardant at the time Stax fell into a serious dispute with Columbia regarding distribution and a lot of Stax product was being holed up in the warehouse and not shipped to the stores.

In Big Star, Alex had a very different vocal approach than he did in Box Tops. But not a shocker after reading the book--as a kid he learned to sing by playing his dad's Ray Charles and Chet Baker records. Talk about different singers! Here's one of Big Star's songs, Ballad of El Goodo:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fhy76l7iOOs

[splanky]

Dang, Ray Charles to Chet Baker? That's like from Earth to Pluto...Those two different recordings don't even sound like they're coming from the same person. Are you sure about
this?...

[smark21]

Yes....just double checked the book as Chris Bell took a couple of leads on Big Star's first album, but it's Alex on lead with Alex, Chris and the band's bassist Andy on the harmonies.

And here is a cut from Big Star's second album Radio City, again Alex on lead. When he did Box Tops songs he would always affect a raspier voice, but his natural voice was this tenor.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXEPgjOdZt4

[mickeymac]

Alex is the man!! The Big Star documentary is fab. I cant reccomend it enough.

[tmd]

And to think he was only 17 years old when he did his big hits, I too am a big fan of Big Star
and I did read a book on Big Star, they were very influential on a lot of bands.

[Doug-Morgan]

There's an interesting little article on what went wrong with Big Star, from NPR in2010.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=123270136