|
http://www.nola.com/music/index.ssf/2010/04/post_7.html...
He died three days before a scheduled appearance with Big Star at the 2010 conference.The ancient Creole cottage in Treme sags. The paint peels. Dormer windows are boarded up. A vine sprouts from the roof.
But to Alex Chilton, one of rock’s great enigmas, this was the most precious house in the world. It was home.
As the teenage frontman of the Box Tops, Chilton’s preternaturally gritty voice sent “The Letter” — “gimme a ticket for an aeroplane, ain’t got time to take a fast train … cause my baby just wrote me a letter” — soaring up the pop charts in 1967. “American Idol” contestant Lee DeWyze recently covered it.
In 1971, Chilton co-founded Big Star. Named for a grocery store chain in Memphis, Tenn., Big Star released three albums, all commercial failures, then disbanded with little fanfare.
But those three obscure 1970s LPs are now hailed as timeless power-pop touchstones. Rolling Stone listed all three in the Top 500 albums of all time. R.E.M., Wilco, the Replacements, the Bangles, Matthew Sweet, Jeff Buckley, Cheap Trick and many more have covered and/or borrowed from Big Star.
In the ultimate affirmation of an enduring legacy, Rhino Records assembled “Keep an Eye on the Sky,” a lavish Big Star box set containing four CDs and a 100-page booklet, in 2009.
Even as his legend grew and he flew off to Big Star and Box Tops reunions, Chilton lived anonymously in New Orleans for 28 years.
On March 20, he planned to front Big Star for a high-profile showcase at the South By Southwest music conference in Austin, Tex., cementing the band’s relevance to yet another generation.
But three days before the show, Chilton died of a heart attack in New Orleans. He was 59.
The Austin showcase morphed into a musical wake featuring Susan Cowsill, R.E.M. bassist Mike Mills, M. Ward, John Doe and the Lemonheads’ Evan Dando. On Easter Sunday, local friends gathered privately in Chilton’s memory. On May 15, a previously scheduled Big Star concert in Memphis will serve as yet another tribute.
Chilton would likely have mixed feelings about such remembrances. His wife, the former Laura Kersting, says he was not sentimental about death. In his view, it happens. Move on.
And though he enjoyed recognition for his music, he did not crave fame. He preferred to live quietly, just another character in a city full of them. He liked that his life in New Orleans was largely a mystery to his cult of fans around the world.
New Orleans, like the cottage in Treme, was his sanctuary.
By 1982, Chilton had soured on the music business in general, and his native Memphis in particular. Struggles with substance abuse didn’t help. Hoping a chanwge of scenery would reinforce his decision to quit drinking, he resolved to start over in New Orleans.
“He definitely had his fill of trying to push (his career), and feeling smothered,” said Iguanas bassist Rene Coman, who befriended Chilton soon after his arrival. “Some air was needed. He was looking to escape everything that had gone on in Memphis, and to be away from negative influences. He wanted a clean start.”
In New Orleans, Chilton recruited Coman for the revolving cast of Tav Falco’s Panther Burns, a pseudo-rockabilly band founded in Memphis. In Chilton’s garage apartment behind artist Bob Tannen’s rambling Esplanade Avenue mansion, he and Coman played along to 45s on a thrift-store record player. Big Star was not necessarily on the playlist.
“Big Star was great, but that’s not how Alex saw himself,” Coman said. “To Alex, his work with Panther Burns was as legitimate as anything else he did.
“Alex didn’t feel like he had to be defined by (his past). He was perfectly comfortable defining himself.”
During those lean years, Chilton washed dishes at Louis XVI Restaurant in the French Quarter and cleaned an Uptown bar called Tupelo’s. His most hazardous gig? Working with a local tree clearing company, trimming tree branches away from River Road power lines with a chainsaw, while perched in a cherry-picker.
At one point, Chilton and Coman joined a Bourbon Street cover band called Scores. During five-hour gigs at Papa Joe’s, patrons called out requests for R&B standards from printed song lists. “It was an adventure,” Coman said. “It was like we were a human jukebox.”
.... Heartbreaking, but he lived on his own terms Its tough to think that the man behind Big Star was washing dishes in NOLA
|
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
