The Greatest Band You’ve Never Heard Of

In 1971, Alex Chilton and his friend Chris Bell formed a new band, Big Star. You geezers boomers will remember “The Letter,” inescapable on Top 40 radio in the late 60s. Chilton was the sixteen-year-old singer on that number-one record and the string of hits that followed for the Box Tops.

Chilton was anxious to create his own music; the Box Tops were firmly controlled by their producers. After an aborted attempt at a solo career, he returned to his hometown, Memphis, where he and Bell had played together in a high-school band. Singer/guitarist/composer Bell had a band with bassist Andy Hummel and drummer Jody Stephens. Chilton joined them. They re-christened the group “Big Star” after a local chain of grocery stores. They produced three albums. Allmusic.com calls them “The quintessential American power pop band.”

“Big Star remains one of the most mythic and influential cult acts in all of rock & roll… the Memphis-based group fused the strongest elements of the British Invasion era — the melodic invention of the Beatles, the whiplash guitars of the Who, and the radiant harmonies of the Byrds into a ramshackle but poignantly beautiful sound which recaptured the spirit of pop’s past even as it pointed the way toward the music’s future… the group’s three studio albums nevertheless remain unqualified classics, and their impact on subsequent generations of indie bands on both sides of the Atlantic.”

None of their three albums made the charts. Released on a small independent label, distribution was contracted to the dysfunctional Stax Records. After reading Rolling Stone’s enthusiastic reviews – “’September Gurls’ is a virtually perfect pop number” – would-be fans could not find Big Star’s LPs in the record stores.

Disagreements with Alex Chilton about the band’s direction caused Chris Bell to depart after the first album. He embarked on an unsuccessful solo career. On his way home from a band rehearsal in 1978, Bell drove his car into a power pole and was killed. He was twenty-seven, the age many rock stars met their demise.

Although few heard Big Star’s music, those who did name it as an influence: R.E.M., the Replacements and the Posies among others. Cheap Trick recorded “In the Street” for That 70s Show. The Bangles, Beck, the dBs are among those who have covered Big Star songs. Rolling Stone included all three Big Star albums on their list of the “500 Greatest Albums of All Time.” “September Gurls,” and the wistful paean to teenage innocence, “Thirteen,” are two of “500 Greatest Songs of All Time.”

Alex Chilton died of heart failure at age fifty-nine in 2010; Andy Hummel died the same year, of cancer, also age fifty-nine. The last surviving member of the original band, Jody Stephens, joined members of Wilco, R.E.M., Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, the Kronos Quartet for a Big Star tribute concert. A compelling feature-length documentary, “Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me,” was released in 2012. You can find it on Netflix.

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