Alex Chilton S&D

Always a good time to reshare this clip...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPl4_vQ9vZo

Was wondering when that was coming.

Oh sorry, I was thinking of
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2U-k32L0KCc

Yeah, there are some decent live Chilton sets around some of them legit-released, as mentioned upthread--- otherwise, for instance somewhere I've got a good radio tape (an aircheck, like in jazz) of him on some Public Radio show (if it's Mountain Stage, might be in their online archives, if they still have those), performing originals, Memphis covers, also some of his favorite Italian pop ballads, adept guitar picking, geniality.
Legit-release/YouTube-wise, one of my fave raves is Live In London, with Morris Windsor and RIP Matthew Seligman of Soft Boys, Knox of the Vibrators---supposedly, somebody showed up at his place of dishwashing business, presented him with a round-trip ticket, and said, "You *are* going to do this." Oh ok go.

I still need to check this---from Xgau's site:
Ocean Club '77 [Norton, 2015]
Chilton's 1977 NYC residency fell apart before the year was over, but it began on a high--the young punk/alt godfather gigging amongst us, nowhere more mythically than at his February 21-22 engagement at Mickey Ruskin's short-lived, way-downtown successor to Max's Kansas City. I attended the first of these shows, and it was incandescent--jammed, noisy, charged with ambient adrenaline. Even a quality recording like this one can't capture such an up, but you can definitely hear a more raucous, confident, and engaged Chilton than was his quirky norm. The 16-song set leads with the brand new "All of the Time," includes five loud Big Star covers plus a rough-hewn reading of the Box Tops smash "The Letter," introduces Chilton's great nonhit "My Rival," and covers the Ventures, the Beach Boys, the Seeds, and Chuck Berry's "Memphis." Cult history is being made. Of course we were psyched. A-

I had that set on some late 90s bootleg, it's pretty great.

some version of it is on Spotify

More videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QaOstl-eQ6I
@BigStarBand

@OmnivoreRecords

@rebel7449 or post even more of your favs here, of course.

I wonder if writer Robert Gordon's new updated version of his book "It Came from Memphis" has new details and stories on Alex Chilton?

Hm. Updated you say?

He would have been 70 yesterday.

from ilxor tylerw's crucial blog (yes still a few):

https://64.media.tumblr.com/84b6815f9035ec678ca1f8f5339b1855/7593e9061c0cd0a6-ea/s1280x1920/05ca7825489dfc281a943f45f09983e1a235fe14.jpg

Here’s something unusual — and uncirculated, perhaps — to get your day started. An audio verité document of the one and only Alex Chilton playing records late into the night at a pal’s loft back in ‘77.
https://doomandgloomfromthetomb.tumblr.com/post/640752212251983872/alex-chilton-richard-freys-loft-246-bowery

@tywilc

Replying to
@williamtylertn
and
@jasonpwoodbury
let's just say that Alex REALLY liked The Beach Boys Love You.

It Csmr from Memphis Robert Gordon book reading event with Ann Powers tonight may touch on Chilton. Thursday Jan 21 6 pm central which I guess is 7 pm eastern, on Facebook

https://fb.me/e/1SC0LQXXA

Parnassus Books is doing the conversation

a wildly entertaining book

Newly updated, right?

published on jack white's vanity label!

Yes, newly updated

Alex Chilton and Hi Rhythm Section
Boogie Shoes: Live On Beale Street

Release date: May 7, 2021

Description
Unissued 1999 live set from Alex Chilton (The Box Tops/Big Star) and Hi Rhythm Section

“I never saw him have so much fun on stage. Without rehearsal, Alex called songs and the band locked in. The horn section consists of top Memphis session guys who huddled together when each song was called creating parts on the fly. The pure joy of playing this music so freely with such legendary musicians comes across in every groove of the record.”

—David Less, from his liner notes.

Memphis is a city with music in its blood. When Fred Ford, co-founder of the Beale Street Music Festival, was diagnosed with cancer, David Less organized Fredstock, a fund raiser to help with his medical bills. Less contacted Memphis legend Alex Chilton (The Box Tops, Big Star), who was living in New Orleans, to ask him to participate. Alex said he didn’t have any musicians to play with in Memphis, so Less suggested the Hi Rhythm Section (the band behind classics from artists including Ann Peebles, Ike & Tina Turner, O. V. Wright, Otis Clay, and Al Green). Alex replied, “That will work.”

This previously unissued live set contains versions of soul classics from The Supremes and Otis Clay, rock numbers from Chuck Berry and Little Richard, and even a cover of the KC & The Sunshine Band title track. Available on CD, Digital, and LP, Boogie Shoes: Live On Beale Street was recorded at the New Daisy Theater in Memphis in 1999, during Fredstock.

Packaging contains liner notes from Producer David Less, a friend of Chilton, and author of the acclaimed Memphis Mayhem: A Story Of The Music That Shook Up The World, and features a cover from rock & roll and folk art painter, Lamar Sorrento.

Get ready to discover this performance by Memphis icons—tearing it up on stage, making music, and having fun. You’ll want to put on y-y-y-y-your Boogie Shoes.

Alex Chilton - Boogie Shoes LP Bundle

Special LP Bundle Available:
We also have a limited-edition bundle that features the LP and a numbered lithographic print of the album cover. This special edition is limited to 100 copies and available only via the Omnivore webstore.

CD / LP / Digital Track List:

Boogie Shoes
Precious, Precious
634-5789
Kansas City
Lucille
Big Boss Man
Where Did Our Love Go
Maybelline
Hello Josephine
Trying To Live My Life Without You

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ExWzYhgWgAoS_gj?format=jpg&name=900x900

more info:
http://omnivorerecordings.com/shop/alex-chilton-and-hi-rhythm-section-boogie-shoes-live-on-beale-street/

A live session of Chilton w/ Hi rhythm section sounds promising for sure

First review of it I've seen:
https://michaelsmusiclog.blogspot.com/2021/04/alex-chilton-and-hi-rhythm-section.html

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EzXPzJEUUAQEoKd?format=jpg&name=small

Surely there's some better quality live recordings out there across his entire career.

I answered my own question:
Ocean Club '77 - solid but only a handful of unique tracks
Electricity By Candlelight NYC 2/13/97 - good selection of songs but terrible bootleg sound quality
Live In Anvers - ahhh, this one is great. A bunch of fun covers, his backing band is a bit loose but enjoyable, and he's in fine voice.

I'm looking forward to the new one based on that review!

I thought Live In London was pretty cool. esp. since he got drafted into a one-off (interrupting his dishwashing gig).
So far "Boogie Shoes" is the only Live on Beale Street track posted on Spotify and the 'Tube---as I expected, most of the interest is insturumental: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-jX_OwPIkA
Also a tiny trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTW7Sqf1Blk

His voice seems more effective on these Chet Baker-associated tunes (first track is glitchy on my computer, but no prob w others). He plays some nice guitar too getting into it more on uptempo "There Will Be Another You" (reminds me, look for Sonnly Rollins's version of that, from the album of the same title, which he sued to have deleted, but later on an import., and prob posted somewhere)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2t1pgsrRzc

0:00​ There Will Never Be Another You [acoustic]
3:02​ That Old Feeling
5:07​ Let's Get Lost
7:11​ Look for the Silver Lining
9:33​ Time After Time
12:11​ Like Someone in Love
14:48​ There Will Never Be Another You [electric]

Band on "That Old Feeling", "Look for the Silver Lining" and "Like Someone in Love" : Ron Miller,acoustic bass and producer; Robert Arron on piano and tenor saxophone; Richard Dworkin on drums. From the album "Imagination" by Medium Cool, with Alex Chilton as guest vocalist on these three tracks only.

Band on "There Will Never Be Another You [electric]" : Ron Easley, electric bass, Richard Dworkin, drums. From the 1999 album "Loose Shoes and Tight Pussy" (New Rose Records) (a.k.a. "Set", Bar/None Records).

"There Will Never Be Another You [acoustic]", "Let's Get Lost", and "Time After Time" are solo performances from the album "Cliches" (1994, New Rose / Ardent)

Photos: Chet Baker, Times Square, New York City, 1958 (age 29; photo by Carole Reiff); Alex Chilton, The Bowery, New York City, 1977 (age 26; photo by David Godlis)

So this is streaming now but haven’t listened yet

It's fun if not as epic as I'd hoped. As always, his choice of covers is impeccable.

I kind of sometimes want to be contrarian about that, but hard to find fault really.

sequence from Sweet Soul Music thread:

Judging by "Boogie Shoes" on YouTube, most of the appeal of the Alex Chilton/Hi Rhythm live album might be insrumental, which reminds me: here they are with Terry Manning, better known as a producer and engineer at Ardent etc. but his rough-and-ready vocal approach works better with HRS live than Chilton's (comparing just one track to another):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5lyZHzReSk

(Chilton seems a bit cautious by comparison---their set was a one-off, but so was Manning's w HRS---filling in at the last minute for a no-show, and just taking the plunge, what the hell---this is the only live track on his album, and really seemed like the only keeper---according to the press sheet, he did a Box Tops Chilton parody for kicks, and was ordered to create an album around it, which mostly seemed like filler, but I didn't listen much)

However!
So Chilton does okay after all, though yeah of course Hi Rhythm Gang is the main interest, esp. horns and bass, though everybody steps up--most songs go on a little over four minutes and a half minutes; the studio originals were at least a minute shorter, but but we get more solo turns and full Section flexing, comfortably. Fave is the penultimate performance, "Hello Josephine," where a Hi man starts the vocal, Chilton coming in later: a very robust 7:12 work-out, calm as ever. Also: Motown gets the Memphis treatment on "Where Did Our Love Go," with Chilton as okay stand-in for Diana Ross, though this is one of he shorter ones, as it probably should be).Does not sing as high, loud and fast there as on "Lucille" or "Maybelline." Sounds like Pat Boone looking to go rong on "Kansas City." Any of yall heard this one? xgau sez:
On the Loose [Hi, 1976]
In which Al Green's sidemen, perhaps disgruntled at Al's unwillingness to record their material, get together and cut it. Some stickler for detail is sure to point out that the singing on side two is completely out of tune, but that's OK--so is most of the singing on side one, which I prefer to Full of Fire. One of the more carefully thought out tracks features a mildly malicious lyric about Green himself, but it's the eccentricity of the music, which sounds as if it includes a banjo, that does him in. Loose indeed. A-
Anyway, very good music for a holiday weekend, has me looking to go for b-b-q chicken.

― dow, Thursday, July 1, 2021 4:33 PM

Well, I attended the 1999 show from which came the latest Chilton live album. At the time I thought it was just a gig for him. His patented guitar sound didn't work in that context. Last time I ever saw Alex. But the live album is really good. He sings so well and easily. I used to think he sloughed off the vocals and got over on the guitar--which could also get messy. But I was wrong. I think "Live in Anvers" is his best live album and the definitive Alex one-stop.

The fact he was friends with Ray Davies when Ray Davies was living in New Orleans is pretty cool.

Right. I love Ray Davies rendition of a New Orleans accent.

There's quite a lot about their friendship in the Americana book.

*birthday bump*

Alex sounds a lot better to me, 11 years after he departed this plane for a heaven filled with Little Beaver albums, high-grade weed and lamb chops prepared by busty Commie gurls. With mint jelly. In retrospect, he almost always sang well, often better than that, and hus guitar playing sounds more original than ever. I can't think of any other guitarist who managed to be both recessive and avant-garde.Structural and expressive. I don't even hear his post-1984 work as ironic--it's a kind of love. Most of his '80s EPs and about half of "High Priest" is brilliant and while "Man Called Destruction" aspires to the generic and remains ... inert? uncommitted? unreadable?, there are 3-4 tracks that work. I can't think of another major artist who did most of his best (mature) work live. I think he was one of the few major performers of the rock era who mastered the art of relaxation. I don't think I would have been comfortable calling Alex major 10 years ago, but now I am. As major as...Tom Petty or Roger MvGuinn or Gram Parsons.

Excuse the typos. Alex also was actually literate, so I guess I need to be more careful. Also, I think the bio by George-Warren is very flawed. There's not one bit about his style or approach in a practical sense. No discussion of how he got his guitar sound. Very light on his last decade. Alex needed a very tough person who was also a discerning ear to how musicians achieve their effects, which she's just too travails-of-thwarted-star to bother with. I actually can't think of one piece or book that gets him. I've read just about every interview ever done with him and listened to every interview I can find. From that you begin to get the picture. Alex was both a synoptic student of pop and rock and a guy who actually contributed to it, fundamentally at a Sun Records level. Which is completely singular.

That was a booming post, Edd, didn't even notice the typos. Second post too.

I always find it sort of interesting to compare him to Lou Reed. On the one hand, they shared some kind of orneriness and waywardness with respect to baiting their audiences and record companies if applicable. On the other hand, Alex had this interesting approach/avoid relationship to his material and his delivery, often recording and performing in kind of a deliberately offhand manner, but at the same time working on his craft (as George Martin said of George Harrison) perfecting or at least improving his guitar playing, building on those early lessons from Dennis Wilson while creating his own skewed version of a Great American Songbook - I can still hear his Memphis drawl saying "this is my favorite song" before performing "Single Again" by Gary Stewart. Whereas Lou ultimately seemed content with the classic career path of Undertutored But Inspired Genius Becomes Sacred Monster And Goes Out Playing Grand Old Man. I guess I still will take one from column A and column B as well though.

Alex learned from Carl Wilson directly, maybe Reggie Young and Bobby Womack at American, from Cropper, Dave Davies. Alex confounds and remains underappreciated by guitar musos because he played in timespace, not in harmonic vertical space--except when he provided the essential harmonic wheels of any particular song. Rhythm guitar. Not unlike Reed but so much warmer, fonder and more rooted in Mel Bay full-bodied chording that was also always right up on the beat, because he respected the song even as he wanted to remain minimalist. A disinclination to step on the bones but a totally funky, laggy, suggestive and non-tonal dirtiness in his non-solos. I know no other guitarist like him, and very few guitarists even come close to his style. Just drastically misunderstood in a world of Dickey Betts fans. Richard Lloyd is maybe Alex's only analogue? Obviously a far more conventionally fluent player, but still somewhat similar. ?

Ugh, didn't realize I typed Dennis instead of Carl. Monday, Monday.

Richard Lloyd is a great comparison, yeah.

Alex learned many other equally valuable lessons from Dennis. Cars and gurls.

Lol

The guitar world is maybe implicitly divided up into (with some overlap of course):

• "Real" Jazz guitarists playing chord melodies with at least four voices and as many altered/color tones as possible
• Rhythm guitarists of all stripes, who vary from playing a somewhat smaller subset of chords used above to only barre chords
• Single note soloists
• Double stop Chuck Berry-style
• Folky/Flamenco/Classical acoustic fingerpickers
• Outside (Lou, Sonny Sharrock, Bob Stinson, Bo Diddley, John Lee Hooker etc)

Maybe I should have had a separate Drone category and put John Lee Hooker in that along with, say, Ron Asheton. Also wondering what to do with Marshall Crenshaw as he has some similarities with Alex, although he is more conventional.

Yes - Mississippi Fred McDowell, Mississippi hill country blues guys ( RL Burnside) along with Hooker

Yes, I was also thinking of those kinds of cats (Sorry, wrong thread). I think we are all familiar with the story of those guys having to play more "legit" for certain audiences. My friend from Detroit who I often mention who you met once although I'm not sure if either of you remember that now (I wasn't there) told me that John Lee Hooker once called up his uncle to take some lessons so he could play for the college crowd.

Yeah, blues with pop appeal, in the 50s, early 60s, when he was coming up in Memphis: BB King and Rufus Thomas, who were known as DJs early on---and think Rufus continued doing that some, after "Walkin' The Dog"?---Memphis Slim: those guys knew they had to compete with Elvis and so on (and Mississippi Sheiks, with their own Memphis connections, had already gone for crossover appeal, filling the gap left by Jimmie Rodgers from the other side, raciallY)---Little Richard his own kind of shattering blues-pop (esp. as my older Black customers in the CD store used "blues" to mean anything from one of the Kings to Johnny Taylor to Lattimore [father, not son, usually] to Smokey Robinson to Nat King Cole to Aretha to Eddie Floyd to Irma Thomas to Dusty Springfield). A necessary precursor to Hendrix at his psych-poppest, on debut Are You Experienced? and Joplin too:her sound is closer to his than any female artist I can think of (Yeah, I know she got "Ball and Chain" from Big Mama Thornton, who had a deeper range than Richard or Joplin's signature sonics).
Also, of course, when Sonny Sharrock was asked what he thought of punk, he said that he'd seen Little Richard at the Apollo in the mid-50s: "You can't get more punk rock than that."
Leading back to Richard Lloyd, whose own pop proclivities emerged more clearly on solo albums (though I think some of it was there in his Television playing, incl. how it fit into Verlaine's songs). Emerged more clearly when he wrote and produced his own tracks, although the caveman bellow and offkey impulses took him in a different direction.
Can imagine that Chilton was further encouraged in the blues-pop direction by his avowed fascination with early Rundgren, who went from blooze w Woody's Truck Stop to Nazz and early solo stuff----
But wait, where and when and what did he learn directly from Carl Wilson?

Carl Wilson gave him guitar lessons when The Box Tops toured with The Beach Boys.