Wings For Wheels

My autographed CD booklet of Bach's Bottom

“There ain’t no one gonna turn me around.” – Alex Chilton, “The Ballad Of El Goodo,” 1972

“Children by the million scream for Alex Chilton to come around” – Paul Westerberg, “Alex Chilton,” 1987

Celebrity deaths don’t often affect me. Usually, it’s just an “Oh, that’s too bad.” If I really liked the artist I’ll put up a post here with a few words and some video clips. But it’s rare that I feel a sense of loss when someone famous dies. After all, they’re someone I’ve known, or at least partly known, only through their work and I can’t grieve as I would for someone I personally knew.

The last one to really get me was Danny Federici of the E Street Band. He had just been on stage with the band a few weeks earlier, so many of us Springsteen fans thought he would have a full recovery. But that night in Indianapolis turned out to be a farewell. Not even Michael Jackson’s death moved me too much. The Michael Jackson I loved had ostensibly died in the early-1990s, replaced by The King Of Pop, bearing no resemblance – literally – to the person behind “I Want You Back,” “Rock With You,” or “Billie Jean.”

But hearing the news that Alex Chilton died hit me pretty hard tonight, almost as much as Danny’s did. Coincidentally, I was in the same bar that I was in the night Jackson died. Back in June, it seemed like every other song played was “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough,” the lone Jackson song on the jukebox. Tonight, I gave the news to the one person there I thought would know who he was. But I had to remind her, “You know, the guy from Big Star? The Replacements did a song about him?” before she recognized the name.

Even though it was St. Patrick’s Day, I wasn’t planning on staying out late anyway. But I finished my drink, settled up, and made my way back home. As I reached for my iPod, I knew there was only one album I wanted to play, Radio City by Big Star. I think #1 Record is a better album, but that’s as much due to Chris Bell’s involvement. Third/Sister Lovers cemented his status as a tortured genius, but parts of it are too fragmented, too bleak, to truly enjoy. Radio City, which was made after Bell’s departure (though he co-wrote a few songs) and also has the rawness of Third/Sister Lovers, was Chilton’s masterpiece.

Listening to it again tonight, it struck me that, at his best, Chilton was three members of the Beatles condensed into one person. He could be as lyrically introspective as Lennon, as melodic as McCartney, and his Strat tone on Radio City sounded like Harrison on “Nowhere Man,” all in the same song, most evidently on “September Gurls.”

Chilton’s story and influence have reached far beyond what his records sold, even the hits he had with the Box Tops, so I’m not going to repeat it here. Still, his work with Big Star defined the sound we know as power pop. Some groups were too powerful, others too poppy. But those first two records are the ultimate blend of guitar crunch and blissful harmonies. It also helped that, as Memphis boys, they also understood soul music. You can listen to my good friends Keith and Mike and I talk about Big Star as part of Episode 28 of Wings For Wheels.