ALEX CHILTON

Let's be straight here - Chilton's a legend, he's influential as hell, and his solo albums are erratic at best (I realize they all have their adherents).  For my money, you can easily get all the solo Chilton songs I'd ever need to hear twice on a single disk and still have plenty of room.

The truth is the guy spent his post-Big Star years pumping out (first) a set of falling-apart-at-the-seams, paint spatters everywhere sessions that eventually got released as albums that were at best pleasant but mostly forgettable, after you got after the initial shock of hearing such ramshackle performances.  Yeah, I know - Like Flies On Sherbert is supposed to be a classic and all.  I only wish I shared that opinion.

After drying out in New Orleans, he set to work knocking out more professional, enjoyable, but still less-than-brilliant albums that mixed vintage R&B covers (often obscure ones), Italian pop songs from the 50's, and originals that were usually vintage R&B-style workouts and were generally jokes (often dirty). Some of it was inspired, none of it was awful ... but none of it was timeless. Other than that he toured his ass off, sometimes with a reunited Big Star, sometimes on the oldies circuit with The Box Tops, sometimes on his own.

Many argued that this was all part of some grand artistic statement: that the sloppy early albums were a deliberate deconstruction; that the later albums and tours were a deliberate defiance of fan demands and expectations.

Myself, I suspect Chilton toured and recorded because the bills had to be paid and that was what he knew how to do.  It certainly beat washing dishes (which he was allegedly reduced to for a time).  I don't fault him for that.  I do fault him for the whiff of contempt I often detected in his efforts.  And most of all I fault the hip young rock crits who hailed his every move as a work of genius when they wouldn't have been caught dead listening to the original versions of those R&B songs Chilton made most of his later repertoire from.

I saw him in San Jose in 1988.  He did a bunch of oldies (a cool version of The Coasters' "Young Blood"), some stuff off then-current album High Priest, a couple of Big Star numbers.  His guitar playing was stunning.   It was essentially a good bar-band show.  I'm pretty sure the college kids, mostly Big Star fans who'd been led there by rock critics and The Replacements tribute song (like me), were a bit baffled by the whole thing.  I was too. But I admit, despite is ramshackle and slightly "I-don-t-give-a-shit" nature, Chilton could never totally hide his talent.  And that's what people saw in him, I suspect.  The shame is that he felt he needed to in the first place.

Essential Listening:

Like Flies On Sherbert (not a great album, but the only way to get "Hey Little Child," my favorite Chilton song)
19 Years (pretty well covers the rest)

Alex Chilton wiki
Allmusic: Alex Chilton
The Glory and Grandeur That Is Defeat (nice Perfect Sound Forever piece on Chilton)