Six Degrees of Alex Chilton by Johnny Mystery

How to get an alternative band from Minneapolis to write a song with your name as the title, thus procuring your status as a rock icon. 

The fickleness of the record buying public is only outdone by its short attention span. People forget. People move on. Art is disposable unless you associate that art with a time in your life that was somewhat monumental. Music is the greatest form of art for evoking a memory. Hearing one line of melody or a catchy chorus can take you back to the sights and smells of another place and time. With that in mind, how could you forget about The Box Tops?

In the fall of 1967, The Box Tops and their vocalist, Alex Chilton took their first record, “The Letter” to number one on the pop charts. Quite the feat for a debut record but even more impressive when you consider Alex and his band were still teenagers. It’s even more impressive when you realize that such a mature vocal was coming from a 16-year-old.  That is to say, unless you saw them live, who would believe such a powerful smoky sound was being made by a skinny white kid! I would venture to say that except for The Young Rascals, the Box Tops were the best blue eyed soul band to come out of the U.S.

The Box Tops had a more than healthy run of hits in the final years of the 60’s. Follow up records include “Cry Like a Baby,” which included a sitar and keep in mind these are soul records. More Top 40 gems that followed were, “Soul Deep”, “Neon Rainbow”, and the very clever tribute to street walkers, ”Sweet Cream Ladies Forward March.” A lot of social consciousness coming from high school boys was happening here. 

Years back, I got the chance to talk to the drummer from the final Box Tops tour and he told me about Alex’s idea for a new band that would primarily be a four piece that would be strictly rock n roll but with songs that contained introspective lyrics. It wasn’t about genres back in those days. It was about ideas. The idea Chilton had would eventually be sighted as the first alternative band and the name of that band would be Big Star. Musicologists from Timbuktu to Portland, Maine will argue all night about who the first alternative band was. Candidates who come to mind would be the likes of The Velvet Underground and The Modern Lovers but as great as those groups are with their own different sound, neither of them had the proper factors that would allow them to assimilate into what we now consider modern alternative to be. At least, not the way Big Star did. 

Throughout the 70’s, they released three albums worth of material. Chilton’s attitude towards record people was moot and their advice on producing a hit fell on deaf ears. Big Star only managed to impress the critics but the music consumers at the time seemed uninterested. Sales were less than stellar, despite songs like, “Thirteen” and “September Girls” the latter of which would go on to be covered by The Bangles.

When Big Star broke up, Chilton spent time soaking up the punk scene in New York and producing several bands, most notably, The Cramps. He helped them with several of their early records. He also became a fixture later in his hometown of Memphis and later in New Orleans, recording, producing and performing but nearly forgotten. Around 1988 however, alternative gods, The Replacements wrote and released their tribute song “Alex Chilton” and just like that, he was back on the radar.

For the rest of his life, Alex enjoyed a resurgence in his career and participated in reunions of both The Box Tops and Big Star. He also continued to travel, write and record solo projects till his death in New Orleans on March 17th, 2010. By following his own musical ideas his contributions to rock and roll have been tremendous. 

Now get out there and start diggin’ through the crates!