Alex Chilton Biography
William Alexander Chilton, 28 December 1950, Memphis, Tennessee, USA. Chilton began singing and playing guitar while still at school and absorbed the raw-edged cry of local soul singers. His first work experience was with Ronnie And The DeVilles, singing Stax-styled R&B. Teamed with multi-instrumentalist Bill Cunningham (whose older brother was in the Hombres and wrote "Let It All Hang Out"), he fronted the Box Tops on guitar and vocals, mixing pop and soul in equal measure. Producer Dan Penn discovered them and recorded "The Letter", released in late summer 1967 on the Bell Records subsidiary Mala. The single reached US number 1 and the UK Top 5. Follow-ups "Cry Like A Baby" (1968) and "Soul Deep" (1969) were quintessential blue-eyed soul hits.
In late 1969, the Box Tops broke up. Chilton joined forces with Chris Bell, an old high school buddy obsessed with British beat music, in Big Star. The name was taken from a grocery store across the street from the Ardent studio: Big Star Foodmarkets. 1972's #1 Record (on the Ardent label, distributed by Stax) was a brilliant debut, with scintillating guitars and fresh melodies. Bell departed, but the tougher sound of the 1974 follow-up Radio City was, if anything, an improvement. Unfortunately, a foul-up over distribution meant the albums became cult items rather than the pop successes that they deserved to be. Chilton disappeared into New York, doing production and session work (Chris Stamey, Tav Falco's Panther Burns) and releasing erratic solo work. The latter included the mesmerising 1978 single "Bangkok" and the following year's cult album, Like Flies On Sherbert. Requested by the Cramps for production work - a telling recognition from new wavers with a greater sense of tradition than anyone guessed - he did a startling job on Songs The Lord Taught Us, actually setting up in Sam Phillips' legendary studio, using more reverb than even Phillips would have countenanced. Chilton subsequently retreated from the music business and a self-destructive lifestyle that had driven him to the edge, retiring to New Orleans to work as a dishwasher and a tree surgeon. He was tempted back into music in the mid-80s by fans the Replacements, joining the band on stage and later producing them. Chilton's 1987 comeback album High Priest, and the following year's tour showed that he was still using his R&B roots to good effect, voice and guitar exhibiting their characteristic nervy edge. Chilton's standing and cult status continued to rise in subsequent decades, even when doing nothing. His solo work increasingly mined his soul and rock 'n' roll roots, most notably on 1995's A Man Called Destruction. The following year's archive set 1970, comprising material originally recorded in 1969 for a projected solo album, built upon that reputation even though it contained a dubious cover version of the Archies' "Sugar Sugar". The 1999 album Loose Shoes And Tight Pussy (known as Set in the USA) was a fairly dreadful collection of soul and jazz classics such as "April In Paris" and "Lipstick Traces". Chilton earned more respect during this decade for reviving both Big Star (in 1993) and the Box Tops (1996), going on to record new albums with both units.
Source: The Encyclopedia of Popular Music by Colin Larkin. Licensed from Muze.
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