RIP Alex Chilton
EmailDays before he was slated to play at the South by Southwest music festival, Alex Chilton has died. The hugely influential 59-year-old singer-songwriter-cult-figure was best known as a member of '60s pop-soul act the Box Tops and the '70s pop act Big Star. He died of an apparent heart attack in New Orleans.
The Box Tops scored a #1 hit with its first single, “The Letter,” in 1967 and a #2 the following year with “Cry Like A Baby.” With Big Star, named after a Memphis grocery chain, Chilton helped define the sensitive power-pop sound of the '70s. Songs like "Feel" and "In the Street" and "I'm in Love with a Girl" would wow critics (but fail to sell), influencing along the way generations of young songwriters — R.E.M., Paul Westerberg and Wilco all owe Chilton a debt of gratitude.
The Commercial Appeal of Memphis, where Chilton was born, has this obit.
SXSW Creative Director Brent Grulke eloquently mourned Chilton in a statement released shortly after news of the death began making the rounds.
“Alex Chilton always messed with your head, charming and amazing you while doing so,” he wrote, according to Entertainment Weekly. “His gift for melody was second to none, yet he frequently seemed in disdain of that gift. He seemed as troubled by neglect as he did by fame. He wrote the most accessible pop songs that turned into something quite sour on closer reflection. It was impossible to know what he was thinking. But it was always worth pondering, because that’s what a truly great artist makes us do. And make no mistake: Alex Chilton was an artist of the very highest caliber. It’s too early to do much but cry about our loss right now, but he’ll be missed, and missed more as the ages pass and his myth continues to expand — that music isn’t going anywhere. R.I.P. and thank you, friend.”
– Brian Braiker
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What a shock. ‘Very, very sorry to hear of Alex’s passing. What an amazing legacy.
Posted by: Steve Andrews | March 18, 2010, 12:29 am 12:29 am
“Give me a ticket for an airplane. Ain’t got time to take a fast train. Lonely days are gone, I’m a goin’ home. My baby just wrote me a letter.”
Posted by: rwsmith | March 18, 2010, 12:30 am 12:30 am
My God-those are the first words that came out of my mouth when I read of Alex’s tragic passing.-What an incredible shock. I grew up with the boxtops when “the letter
‘”came out in 1967. I was 20 years old. I am numb. I am at a total loss for words.
I rembember still, at the end of “the letter” the seagulls singing.
Dear Alex, -may God always be with you.
Posted by: len apter | March 18, 2010, 1:10 am 1:10 am
wow.
Posted by: obviousman | March 18, 2010, 1:13 am 1:13 am
Alex; a true musician, a gifted artist a melodic genius, you will forever be missed. Thank you friend, still my heart is broken.
Posted by: Daniela | March 18, 2010, 1:15 am 1:15 am
Paul Westerberg made a 2nd generation aware of the man.
RIP
Lyrics from Alex Chilton
If he was from Venus, would he feed us with a spoon?
If he was from Mars, wouldn’t that be cool?
Standing right on campus, would he stamp us in a file?
Hangin’ down in Memphis all the while.
(chorus:)
Children by the million sing for Alex Chilton when he comes ’round
They sing “I’m in love. What’s that song?
I’m in love with that song.”
Cerebral rape and pillage in a village of his choice.
Invisible man who can sing in a visible voice.
Feeling like a hundred bucks, exchanging good lucks face to face.
Checkin’ his stash by the trash at St. Mark’s place.
(chorus)
I never travel far, without a little Big Star
Runnin’ ’round the house, Mickey Mouse and the Tarot cards.
Falling asleep with a flop pop video on.
If he was from Venus, would he meet us on the moon?
If he died in Memphis, then that’d be cool, babe.
Posted by: Mike Nowicki | March 18, 2010, 2:36 am 2:36 am
There was something about living in the American South in the ’70s that Chilton’s Big Star managed to capture in spare, elegant poetry: angst, disaffection, loneliness, despair, love glorious love, friendship, hope. Big Star was relevant—at least for me. It might not be so much so today; you had to be there.
Then there was that clean, shimmering guitar and emphasis on pop songwriting craft that had gotten lost in all the glitz and prog-rock messsiness. It spoke to those of us who could find it; #1 Record was an obscure gem, and that made us want it more. Radio City even more so.
Chilton’s death washes me over as a warm breath of nostalgia for a certain time and a certain place—not necessarily a time or a place I’d want to go back to, but nevertheless a time and a place that I had to pass through to become who I am today. I would not want to be that Big Star-loving kid again, but I do have a certain fondness for who he was and the struggles he faced and, eventually, conquered. And every time I listen to those first two Big Star records, in particular, I think of that kid.
And yet it’s not all about the nostalgia, some of those songs endure. There’s never been a time in my life—since ’73, I think—that I haven’t I had one or more Big Star records in my collection. And there’s never been a time that I’ve shined one of their songs on when it’s cycled through my iPod.
Rock and roll will never die, but Alex Chilton just did. RIP, man.
Posted by: Jim H. | March 18, 2010, 3:57 pm 3:57 pm