Alex Chilton

by Cub Koda
In a business that reinvents itself at every turn, Alex Chilton has managed to survive for three decades with a three-fold career as well — his early recordings with the Box Tops, the three albums he did with Big Star in the mid-70s and the spate of cool, but chaotic, solo albums hes recorded since then. To some, hes a classic hit-maker from the 60s. To others, hes a genius British-style pop musician and songwriter. To yet another audience, hes a doomed and despairing artist who spent several years battling the bottle, delivering anarchistic records and performances while thumbing his nose at all pretenses of stardom, a quirky iconoclast whose influence has spawned the likes of the Replacements and Teenage Fanclub.
For a guy who grew up in and around Memphis, there isnt anything remotely Southern about Alex Chilton. Although fully aware of his surroundings and in tune spiritually with its most lunatic fringe aspects, Alex Chiltons South has more to do with genteel Southern intellectualisms than rednecks.
Chilton started playing music in local Memphis high-school combos, alternating between bass and rhythm guitar with a stray vocal thrown in, finally working himself up to professional status with a group called the DeVilles. After acquiring a manager with recording connections tied to Memphis hitmakers Chips Moman and Dan Penn, Alex and the group — newly renamed the Box Tops — recorded The Letter, a record that sounded White enough to go number one on the pop charts and yet Black enough to track on R&B stations, too. Chilton was still in his teens, but armed with a strong conception of how pop and R&B vocals should be handled. With the hand of vocal coach Dan Penn firmly in place, the hits kept coming, with Cry like a Baby, Soul Deep and Sweet Cream Ladies all showing visible chart action. The Box Tops were stars by AM radio singles standards, but tours in general opened Chiltons eyes to the world and what it had to offer. And what that world seemed to offer to Alex was a lot more artistic freedom than he had as nominal leader of the Box Tops.
After a few errant solo sessions, Chilton found himself in Big Star with singer/guitarist Chris Bell. Their blend of ethereal harmonies, quirky lyrics and Beatlesque song structure appeared to be radio-friendly, but distribution for their label, Ardent Records, spelled disaster. With Bell gone and the label literally hanging on by a thread, Chilton went into the studio with producer Jim Dickinson and attempted to put together the third Big Star album. These sessions, now known as Sister Lovers, are legendary in some quarters. So much has been read into this recording, primarily the myth that Chilton became a pop artist who, in the face of critical success but commercial apathy, suddenly rebelled against the system and became a doomed artist on a collision course to Hell. Chilton himself dismisses all such romantic notions: I think that to say that its a fairly druggy sort of album that is the work of a confused person trying to find himself or find his creative direction is a fair statement about the thing.
Around 1976, Chilton started producing a wild cross-section of solo outings for various foreign and American independent labels, all featuring his love for obscure material, barbed-wire guitar playing, howling feedback and bands who sounded barely familiar with the material. Plugging into the bohemian punk rock scene of New York City, Chiltons anarchic approach and attitude fit the scene like a glove. In addition to his gigging and performing schedule, Alex also produced the debut session by the Cramps, helping to land their deal with I.R.S. Records. Chilton was getting legendary enough to end up having a song by the Replacements named after him. Through the late 80s into the early 90s, Alex split his time between recording, gigging overseas plugging his latest release and playing oldies shows in the U.S., reprising his old Box Tops hits. In the early 90s, Chilton — relocated to New Orleans, his demons behind him — began releasing a series of excellent solo albums on the newly revived Ardent label and even participated in a couple of Big Star reunions.