The Peculiar Truth about Big Star, the Best 70s Band You've Never Heard Of

Big Star with Alex Chilton on the far right

• 1967: Alex Chilton, a 16-year-old Memphis high school student, was picked as lead singer of a local band called the Devilles.

• They became the Box Tops.

• That year, they released a hit record - “The Letter.”

• Chilton dropped out of high school.

• The teenager’s raspy blue-eyed soul singing style drew acclaim.

• The next year, they scored another hit song with “Cry Like a Baby.”

• After four years, the Box Tops disbanded. Chilton was 20.

• 1972: Back in Memphis, Chilton and Chris Bell, along with Jody Stephens and Andy Hummel, formed a new band called Big Star. They recorded an album called #1 Record.

• Though it sold fewer than 10,000 copies, that album - and Alex Chilton - went on to influence numerous successful rock musicians for many years to come.

• Chilton, the son of a jazz musician, was an iconoclast. He didn’t write any of the Box Tops’ hits, and he felt manipulated throughout that band’s short history. So he committed to bucking the established industry guidelines and rule makers.

• On their first album, Chilton and Bell wrote and sang all of Big Star’s tunes.

• The band’s sound was eclectic and ahead of its time - hard rock mixed with ballads. Some credit Chilton with creating power pop. Others said he invented indie and alternative rock music.

• Acclaim poured in. Rock critics loved Big Star. Unfortunately, the band’s label, Ardent, dropped the ball, and sales were few.

• The band began falling apart almost immediately. Citing depression, Chris Bell left the group. Chilton remained the driving force, and Big Star recorded just two more albums together.

• The first two - #1 Record and Radio City - are considered rock masterpieces.

• 1974: The band’s record label decided that their third album had no commercial appeal, so they shelved it. Big Star broke up.

• Then Chris Bell died in an auto accident. He was 27.

• Chilton had substance abuse issues in the mid-70s and eventually got clean. He had a solo career and maintained a cult following but never became as popular as other rockstars. Nor did he seem to want fame.

• Ever musically eclectic, Chilton produced the late 70s punk rockers The Cramps.

• After getting sober, Chilton worked as a dishwasher and as a tree trimmer. He said in later interviews that those jobs helped ground him.

• Big Star influenced bands like REM, the Pixies, and the Replacements - so much so that the latter group recorded a song titled “Alex Chilton.”

• The Bangles had a hit with a cover version of Big Star’s “September Gurls.”

• 1993: Chilton reformed Big Star with a new lineup of musicians and went on tour.

• The band Cheap Trick (also a power pop group) had recorded a cover of Big Star’s “In the Street.”

• That tune became the theme song to the hit TV series That Seventies Show.

• Thanks to royalties from the television show, Alex Chilton made enough money to buy a house in New Orleans. He settled down and got married.

• March 2010: Days before Big Star were scheduled to perform at Austin’s SXSW Festival, Alex Chilton suffered a sudden heart attack and died. He was 59.

• A tribute band was quickly put together and performed at the festival to honor him.

• In every aspect of his career, whether as teenage rocker, power pop pioneer, or punk rock producer, Alex Chilton was ahead of his time.

• Though still a cult band, Big Star’s music - fifty years on - sounds timeless.