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Few bands from the 1970s have seen as much resurgence in popularity as Big Star. Anchored by Alex Chilton and Jody Stephens, the Memphis-based power-pop group didn’t make much of a commercial splash during their original years together, but their cult following has grown over the years. That’s thanks in no small part to a series of fine reissues by Omnivore Recordings. In January, Omnivore will release Live On WLIR, a new, remastered version of Big Star’s legendary 1974 radio broadcast. The 15-track collection will be released on CD and 2-LP on January 25.
Recorded at Ultrasonic Studios in New York, the 1974 WLIR broadcast session sees the band in rebound after a state of transition. The group had recently completed their second album, 1973’s Radio City. It was their first as a trio, following the departure of founding member Chris Bell. Before the band could hit the road to support the record, bassist Andy Hummel left, as well. He was replaced with John Lightman. Together, the trio performs highlights from their first two long-players, along with a cover of Loudon Wainwright III’s “Motel Blues.” The result is an essential document of vintage, live Big Star.
While the broadcast has been issued before – on the early ’90s Rykodisc CD, Live – every track on Omnivore’s Live On WILR has been newly remastered and restored from the original tapes, ensuring a better listening experience. What’s more, Omnivore is finally bringing these performances to vinyl for the first time ever. The package also includes new liner notes from Grammy Award-winner Robert Gordon, plus a new interview with bassist John Lightman, conducted by Chris Bell authority Rich Tupica.
In all, Live On WLIR is set to be the definitive presentation of Big Star’s broadcast. The album will be released on CD and 2-LP on January 25. Check out the full track listing and pre-order links below!
Big Star, Live On WLIR (originally Live, Rykodisc RCD 10221, 1992 – reissued Omnivore OV-321, 2018)
CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada Link TBD
2-LP: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada Link TBD
- September Gurls
- Way Out West
- Mod Lang
- Don’t Lie To Me
- O My Soul
- Interview
- The Ballad of El Goodo
- Thirteen
- I’m In Love With a Girl
- Motel Blues
- In the Street
- You Get What You Deserve
- Daisy Glaze
- Back of a Car
- She’s a Mover
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Just what the music world needs … another Big Star repackaging. Zzzzzz. Perhaps the next thing on Omnivore’s list will be grafting the vocal tracks onto newly arranged orchestral backing for that once-in-a-lifetime fantastic ready-for-public-television-fund-drive experience.
Please. Let this band rest in peace. We have it all already, twice.
As a Boxtops fan, especially the lead vocals, supposedly of Alex Chilton, I spent a lot of money buying everything else he sang on. Suffice to say that every vocal of his (even on Boxtops B sides and LP tracks) were completely weak and weedy, especially obvious on his re-recordings of Boxtops classics. I am also a great Dan Penn fan and have all his stuff. As he co-wrote and produced lots of the Boxtops material, I thought that his voice was remarkably similar to many of those on the Boxtops singles. To be honest, they were exactly the same and I never found a Chilton vocal that was anything like it. I concluded that it was Penn who sang lead vocals on all the major Boxtops tracks. I’m still sure that I’m right but all Chilton’s fans deny it and I got no reply trying to ask Dan Penn if I was right. Try comparing Dan Penn’s recordings and odd re-recordings of Boxtops tracks with Chilton’s and you’ll see what I mean. Chilton’s vocals are crap.
Big Star were WAAAAAAYYYYY better than the Box Tops…and those are really ALEX’ vocals in harmony with the others…60s British-influenced powerpop and honest & catchy songwriting…do yourself a big favour and check out Big Star for the REAL Alex Chilton…you might be pleasantly surprised…
I also bought all the Big Star albums in my search for more Boxtops-style vocals from Chilton and there isn’t a single one on them that sounds like the voice on most of The Boxtops lead vocals. They;re all weak and weedy.
Bearing in mind that Chilton was just 16 – 18 in The Boxtops, that only adds credence to the fact that he couldn’t ever sing with that deep, gravelly voice, even when he for older.
Too true, Grumpy Ed. Too true.
I’m really curious about how this sounds vs. the 1992 Rykodisc CD (which I have). That disc doesn’t sound bad, but it does sound like what it is – a live to 2-track recording made in the early 1970s, warts and all. I don’t think there’s much you could do to improve that, but I’d love to be wrong.
As a Boxtops fan, especially the lead vocals, supposedly of Alex Chilton, I spent a lot of money buying everything else he sang on. Suffice to say that every vocal of his (even on Boxtops B sides and LP tracks) were completely weak and weedy, especially obvious on his re-recordings of Boxtops classics. I am also a great Dan Penn fan and have all his stuff. As he co-wrote and produced lots of the Boxtops material, I thought that his voice was remarkably similar to many of those on the Boxtops singles. To be honest, they were exactly the same and I never found a Chilton vocal that was anything like it. I concluded that it was Penn who sang lead vocals on all the major Boxtops tracks. I’m still sure that I’m right but all Chilton’s fans deny it and I got no reply trying to ask Dan Penn if I was right. Try comparing Dan Penn’s recordings and odd re-recordings of Boxtops tracks with Chilton’s and you’ll see what I mean. Chilton’s vocals are crap.
The Big Star vocalist and The Box Tops vocalist have never quite matched up for me either.
I also bought all the Big Star albums in my search for more Boxtops-style vocals from Chilton and there isn’t a single one on them that sounds like the voice on most of The Boxtops lead vocals. They;re all weak and weedy.
Bearing in mind that Chilton was just 16 – 18 in The Boxtops, that only adds credence to the fact that he couldn’t ever sing with that deep, gravelly voice, even when he for older. It was Dan Penn on lead vocals.
It’s a small matter, I know – but I’m hoping this is the unedited broadcast, or less-edited at least, including all of the spoken intros.
As for the debate above – I love The Box Tops and Big Star both – and much of Alex’s solo work as well. Sue me! 🙂
Trouble is that the lead vocals Chilton does with Big Star are nothing like most lead vocals on The Box Tops material, except for Boxtops obscure tracks and some B-sides, from which it is obvious that they are the only ones featuring Chilton on lead vocals.
It’s all Chilton, dude – Chilton mimicking Dan Penn (as both Chilton and Penn said in interviews at various times).
As I’ve said before, I checked all Big Star and Chilton solo LPs and even live performances of him doing Boxtops numbers and his own out years ago and his voice is weak and weedy on them all. There’s no way he could have sang in that deep, gravelly voice, especially aged 17 or, for that matter, mimicked Dane Penn’s voice at any time later in his life. It was Penn’s vocals that made those songs. Don’t forget also that Penn produced many of them. I asked Penn about it via e-mail and got no reply which, to my mind, says it all.
Funny – to my way of thinking, no reply literally says nothing!
Dan Penn, Chips Moman (who, with Tommy Cogbill, took over production of The Box Tops when Penn quit – there’s a clue in there), Spooner Oldham, John Fry (who recorded much of the NONSTOP album at Ardent Studio), and various Box Tops members have, over the years, offered their reminiscences about working and recording with Chilton during the Box Tops era. I recommend Holly George-Warren’s Chilton bio A MAN CALLED DESTRUCTION, or Robert Gordon’s delightful IT CAME FROM MEMPHIS (which, among other things, includes Dan and Spooner’s great story about writing and recording “Cry Like A Baby”).
Are all of these people covering up? Still? If so, why? What’s in it for them?
And why WOULDN’T a seventeen -year-old be able to gruff up his voice? How old do you think a male has to be in order to do that?
And why WOULDN’T Chilton have stopped imitating Dan Penn once he’d moved on to a completely different style of music?
For that matter, can you really imagine Dan Penn wanting to cover the Vanilla Fudge cover of “You Keep Me Hanging On”?
If you still don’t believe me, here’s The Box Tops playing and singing “The Letter” live (not miming) in 1967. Do you think Dan Penn is standing behind the curtain?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9FwcZS8zaQ
Meant to say Terry Manning at Ardent, not John Fry (though Fry may have done some too).
Speaking of whom, Manning recorded some Chilton solo sessions in 1969-’70 – covertly, as Alex was still contractually bound to The Box Tops. On those sessions, released many years later, you can hear AC eventually “find” his Big Star voice, but on the earliest cuts he still has some of the Penn/Box Tops mannerisms.