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.
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.
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