NMissCommentor

I don’t think there’s any really representative video– its all either the lip-sync 60s Box Tops doing “The Letter,” or poor quality video from the recent revival of Big Star.  Unfortunately, I couldn’t find anything from the period he was playing in the 80s when he came back to performing.  But these should give a feel of some of his best stuff for those who don’t know him.

“Can’t Seem to Make You Mine,” a cover of a song by the Seeds, from a 1977 single

“Back of A Car” from Big Star Radio City

“Life is White” from Big Star Radio City

“In the Street” from Big Star #1 Record

Alex Chilton broke into music as member of the Memphis blue-eyed soul band the Box Tops, singing their Dan Penn-produced hit “The Letter” (“Give me a ticket for an airplane / ain’t got no time for a fast train… Oh the lonely days are gone, I’m coming home, my baby, she wrote me a letter.”)  After the break-up of the Box Tops in the late 60s, he was hanging with a group of Memphis musicians around the new-ish Ardent studios in Memphis (Chris Bell, Jody Stephens, and Andy Hummell), and they formed a band called Big Star.http://nmisscommentor.com/wp-admin/post-new.php

The Big Star guys were focused on pop music they’d picked up from England and taking it a step farther.  Chilton, Bell, Stephens, and Hummell formed a band, Big Star, and recorded “#1 Record.”  You might know “In The Street,” a Chilton song from that record.  A  combination of lush vocal pop from Bell and angular guitar from Chilton, along with pop songs from both, it went exactly nowhere on the Stax-distributed Ardent label.  Bell split from the band, and it went in a recorded a follow-up, “Radio City,” with songs like “O My Soul” “Back of a Car,” September Gurls.”  There’s a great Eggleston photo on the cover.  A brief tour, and Big Star was essentially over.  Chilton came back into a studio with Stephens and a variety of musicians made a serious stab at a successor, producing the album variously titled Big Star 3 and Sister Lovers (produced by the late lamented Jim Dickinson), and that was it.

These albums foreshadowed power pop and alternative rock.  If you don’t know them and love rock, you need to check them out.  I wasn’t fully aware how much this went beyond Memphis until the mid-80s; I was in a use record/collectors store in Georgetown in Washington, and, still in search for an original of Radio City (I had a bootleg reprint from Europe), asked the clerk if he’d seen it.  He laughed, and said that he’d had one in six months before, put it out on the shelves for $50, it was sold by lunchtime.

I’ve seen a lot of Alex Chilton shows.  About the time my brother Robert hit 21, we spent the night at a show in Memphis at the Antenna Club, watching Alex do what Robert called “the human jukebox,” playing covers till dawn that arranged from “Volare” to the “Marine’s Him” to “Tee Na Nee Na Nu”  in his best post-Big Star band that included Jim Spake on sax.  Another night in Oxford, after the show he wanted folks he knew well enough to listen to hear the early Conway Twitty that was obsessing him.  He played at a memorial for Robert Palmer in New Orleans, and at one point did a show in Howlin’ Wolf at New Orleans that I walked out on.  I was a little sad that the Big Star shows at one point seemed to be nothing more than music-for-money in the same sense of his oldies package Box Tops shows.

In any event, Alex Chilton has died at 59, and he will be missed.  Here’s what the Commercial Appeal wrote:

Pop hitmaker, cult hero, and Memphis rock iconoclast Alex Chilton has died.

The singer and guitarist, best known as a member of ’60s pop-soul act the Box Tops and the ’70s power-pop act Big Star, died today at a hospital in New Orleans. Chilton, 59, had been complaining of about his health earlier today. He was taken by paramedics to the emergency room where he was pronounced dead. The cause of death is believed to be a heart attack.

His Big Star bandmate Jody Stephens confirmed the news this evening. “Alex passed away a couple of hours ago,” Stephens said from Austin, Texas, where the band was to play Saturday at the annual South By Southwest Festival. “I don’t have a lot of particulars, but they kind of suspect that it was a heart attack.”

The Memphis-born Chilton rose to prominence at age 16, when his gruff vocals powered Box Tops massive hit “The Letter.” The band would score several more hits, including “Cry Like a Baby” and “Neon Rainbow.”

After the Box Tops ended in 1970, Chilton had a brief solo run in New York before returning to Memphis. He soon joined forces with a group of Anglo-pop-obsessed musicians, fellow songwriter/guitarist Chris Bell, bassist Andy Hummel and drummer Jody Stephens, to form Big Star.

The group became the flagship act for the local Ardent Studios’ new Stax-distributed label. Big Star’s 1972 debut album, #1 Record met with critical acclaim but poor sales. The group briefly disbanded, but reunited sans Bell to record the album Radio City. Released in 1974, the album suffered a similar fate, plagued by Stax’s distribution woes.

“I’m crushed. We’re all just crushed,” said Ardent founder John Fry, who engineered most of the Big Star sessions. “This sudden death experience is never something that you’re prepared for. And yet it occurs.”

The group made one more album, Third/Sister Lovers, with just Chilton and Stephens — and it too was a minor masterpiece. Darker and more complex than the band’s previous pop-oriented material, it remained unreleased for several years. In 2003, Rolling Stone magazine would name all three Big Star albums to its list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

In the mid-’70s Chilton began what would be a polarizing solo career, releasing several albums of material, like 1979’s Like Flies on Sherbet — a strange, chaotically recorded album of originals and obscure covers that divided fans and critics. Chilton also began performing with local roots-punk deconstructionists the Panther Burns.

In the early ’80s, Chilton left Memphis for New Orleans, where he worked a variety of jobs and stopped performing for several years. But interest in his music from a new generation of alternative bands, including R.E.M. and the Replacements, brought him back to the stage in the mid-’80s.

He continued to record and tour as a solo act throughout the decade. Finally, in the early ’90s, the underground cult based around Big Star had become so huge that the group was enticed to reunite with a reconfigured lineup.

“It’s obvious to anybody that listens to his live performances or his body of recorded work, his tremendous talent as a vocalist and songwriter and instrumentalist,” Fry said.

“Beyond the musical talent, he was an interesting, articulate and extremely intelligent person,” Fry added. “I don’t think you’d ever have a conversation with him of any length that you didn’t learn something completely new.”

The band, featuring original member Stephens plus Jon Auer and Ken Stringfellow of the Posies, continued to perform regularly over the next 16 years. Big Star became the subject of various articles, books and CD reissue campaigns, including the release of widely hailed box set, Keep an Eye on the Sky, released last year by Rhino Records.

“When some people pass, you say it was the end of an era. In this case, it’s really true,” said Memphis singer-songwriter Van Duren, a Chilton contemporary in the Memphis rock scene of the ’70s.

The band was scheduled to launch the spring 2010 season at the Levitt Shell at Overton Park with a benefit concert on May 15.

Big Star had not played in Memphis since a 2003 Beale Street Music Festival appearance.

Chilton is survived by his wife, Laura, and a son Timothy.

Update: Dan Penn produced “The Letter,” and the original post stated he wrote it.  Correction supplied by Scott Barretta.

The Farmers Market out on Old 7 (the far reaches of North Lamar, beyond the intersection of Hwy 30/Molly Bar) had English peas in the shell yesterday and they are worth checking out.

English peas in the shell can be problematic.  If they are good and fresh, they’ll be sweet and wonderful.  If they are just a little far gone, they’ll be starchy and no sweet and you’ll really be annoyed about the extra work shelling to produce something inferior to Bird’s Eye’s frozen.

Well, I just ate peas I bought yesterday and the Farmers Market, and these are the good ones.  The sure test is to shell a couple and taste, raw.  If the first thing you get is “sweet pea,” you’re in business.  If not, not.  These pass the test.

Here’s what I did with them, serving it alone with veal chops on which I’d rubbed fresh rosemary, parsley, and thyme (equal parts), salt, pepper, and grilled 4 minutes to a side.  This all served two.

Fresh English Peas with Orchiette

About a cup of freshly shelled English peas
About 2 cups of orchiette (pasta so named because it’s vaguely ear shaped. If you can’t get that, another smallish pasta will do, perhaps bow tie and I’m not sure what else.  Orchiette is preferred)
one very thinly sliced clove of garlic
1/3 cup homemade chicken broth (you will want to use water here rather than canned broth if you have no homemade)
3-4 tbs unsalted butter, cut into 6 or so pieces and kept chilled
3 or so tbs of freshly grated Parmesan (optional)

1.   Bring a small saucepan half full of water to a low boil.  Salt the water. Put the peas in and cover and drop heat drastically.  Bring it to a low simmer and keep it there.  Cook about eight or so minutes until the peas are just done.  Drain them and reserve.

2.  Meanwhile, bring pasta water to a rolling boil.  Salt the water and add the past and bring back to a boil while stirring.

3.  Put the stock in a small saucepan (if your timing is right, finish and reserve the peas and use that one) and bring to a low simmer with the clove of garlic in it.  After the broth has a decent but not overwhelming garlic flavor, skim it out.

4.  When the pasta is getting close to done, put the stock on low heat (very low) and begin whisk in the chilled butter, about 2 pieces at a time.  Whisk constantly and vigorously as you add the pieces of chilled butter, working to achieve and keep an emulsion.  Once all the butter is accumulated, add the peas, stir thoroughly, and set in a warm place on the stove until the pasta is done.

5.  When the orchiette is cooked (11 or 12 minutes or so), drain it thoroughly and return to the saucepan you cooked it in, pour the peas/butter/stock over it, and toss thoroughly.  When you serve it, put the Parmesan on it.

As I noted, Eudora Welty took a picture of the Presbyterian church at Rodney that lacked the “civil war cannonball” now lodged in the front.  After an outraged believer in the myths of the Old South commented in disbelief, I poked around and found that Marion Post Walcott captured the same image, although not as clearly (or beautifully) as Welty. Here’s the Walcott, clearly lacking the black pimple-like dot of the cannonball (there’s a mortar repair, like many others on the fascade of the church) followed by Marty Kittrell’s, in which the cannonball is unmistakable.

Walcott’s imagine is undated FSA photos, but the neighboring call number is dated 1940, so I’m going to accept that as the date (the call numbers relate in a loose way to the shooting of rolls of film by the FSA photographers).

Here’s what I’m seeing, side by side.  As I noted, my memory is that it’s much clearer in the Welty photo.  But I’m not seeing that black dot from the Kittrell photo on the 1940 photo from Walcott.

While it’s not as clear as (my recollection of) the Welty photograph, there’s clearly no defined black dot in the 1940 photo, the way there is in the recent Kittrell photo.  There’s certainly a mortar patch in the same area of the brick.

Marty Kittrell, the Vicksburg photograph who specializes in photograph historic buildings and the like (along with nature) in the Vicksburg, Jackson, and Old Southwest part of the state, makes regular visits to Claiborne County, where my father’s family is from.  A recent post revisits the Freeland family cemetery in Westside very near Windsor.

The cemetery is on an Indian mound, one of three in the vicinity that form a relatively large triangle.  My family started using it as a cemetery shortly after 1800 (my family was in the vicinity sometime between 1794, the date of a Spanish land grant, and about 1804, having come through the Cumberland Gap and then down the Natchez Trace en route from the Chesapeake Bay area of Maryland).

The nearest town then was Bruinsburg, down on the river, the home of Peter Brian Bruin, a Spanish judge and then a territorial judge, veteran of the French and Indian Wars (captured by the French at the assault on Quebec when Gen. Montgomery was killed).  Aaron Burr visited his home just prior to being arrested.  There is a family legend that Bruin’s daughters would not bury him and that he is “the stranger”– non-family member– listed as one of the graves in a list of those buried in the family cemetary.

Bruinsburg (the current road to which is near the road to Windsor) was where Grant’s forces began to cross the river on their route to encircle Vicksburg.  What remains of it is now is a field in which you can see a couple of brick cisterns and the like, and not much more, down on the river bottom.  Where the river was in front of the town is a small lake.

He also went down to Rodney and photographed the famous Presbyterian Church there, which has lodged just above the middle 2nd floor window a cannonball.  As Kittrell notes, legend has it that the cannon ball was fired from a Union gunboat when Rodney was on the river (the river has now moved a mile away).  A problem with that legend is a photograph taken by Eudora Welty in 1939, in which there is no sign of the cannonball.

His Rodney photographs capture the little ghost town; a look at them makes it really startling to know that Rodney was one of the three towns on the river (Vicksburg, New Orleans, and Rodney) trading directly with Liverpool in the 1850s.  Thomas Freeland (whose brother Augustin is my direct ancestor) was the president of the Bank of Rodney.

I’ve got three different single-topic posts in the works and hope to have them up later tonight.  At least one should be of interest to those wanting something about Scruggs.  In the meantime, here’s some things of interest:

• Preservation in Mississippi is a group blog new to me that I highly recommend.  Because of a link to my blog’s post about the fire at the Gin, I learned about this blog, which is about a month older than mine.  It is full of wide-ranging and rich information, news, and research on historic Mississippi buildings, particularly those being improved or at peril.   There’s posts of Mount Holly, a beautiful abandoned and endangered home near Greenville based on the same Calvert Vaux plans as Ammadelle here in Oxford.  The picture above is of Mount Holly.  One series of posts that interested me was a series about an early 20th century Mississippi architect, C.H. Lindsley, about whom little is known, except that he designed the Standard Life Building in Jackson, the Robert E. Lee Hotel, Jackson’s Central High School, and here in Oxford, Fulton Chapel at Ole Miss.  There are many other well-known public buildings mentioned on the blog as having been built by this guy.  There are backstories for continuing subjects like the preservation of Church Street in Port Gibson, a topic that I particularly care about.

• Speaking of the Gin fire, the Eagle reported Friday that the owners of the Gin (Larry McAlexander and Scott Spragins) were offering “$9000 to whomever knows who burned down their property.”

• The front page-top story in the Eagle was February indictments, which lead with Bilethon Autry’s indicmtent for shooting his brother, Charlie Ray Hodges, during the hostage stand-off last September at their father’s home in Grand Oaks.  After the jump, Alyssa Schnugg’s story describes two odd ones . First, a couple from Alabama stole a car behind the Varsity Grill about 2:00 AM last November 7th, and drove off unaware that a woman was asleep in the back seat.  They dropped her off unharmed out in the county and proceeded on.  They’ve been indicted for auto theft and (accidental?) kidnapping.  Second, there’s been a charge of a 20-year-passed sexual assault of a minor with a six count indictment involving events that occured between June and November of 1989.

In my first semester of law school (in 1978), for property, I had Bill Champion for Property (Guff Abbott taught my section Property II).  In that class and upper level classes what he wanted to sound was themes from trusts and the like, and there was a way each class was the particularly subject through the particular Champion lens.  I had him for wills, but never took the trusts class.

Like all memorable first year law professors, he embodied his subject.  (One law school friend, a big fan of Professor Champion, noted that Champion would regularly announce a 5 factor test, list four factors, and then, queried by the students, say there must have been four.  I lived in fear of that missing element doing course outlines).

H/t to Ben Cole, who wrote in comments:

I learned earlier today that Bill Champion died yesterday. Bill’s first-year Property classes at Ole Miss sent a lotta 1L students on alternative career paths. He was the most demanding and the best educator I ever had. Hands down. I regret his passing.

I share his regret, and really wish to have a rest from this sort of post.

Mildred Quarles was a local leader from the Price Hill community in Oxford, active for decades in civil rights, community work, and Democratic politics.  She was a friend and client.  Her mother died at 97 in January, and I posted about it.

The lawsuit desegregating the Oxford city schools was styled Mildred Quarles v. the Oxford Municipal School District.  When I was in the 9th grade, the Fifth Circuit announced it had lost patience and demanded fully integrated schools.  I spent the first half of 9th grade at Oxford High School and the second half at Central High School, and saw the conditions of the schools Black children had been attending.  Central high was a 20s vintage Rosenwald school sitting next to an early 60s primary school, built at the same time as Bramlett Elementary, I suspect as an attempt at separate-but-equal. The last-ditch argument made by the schools was “well, we’ll just go to half-days for everyone and send them all to the white facilities.”  The federal judges responded:  “You were just now saying these other facilities were good enough for the Black students. We’ll use them”).  Seeing the conditions of that school was a formative experience for me, and the first  of many important ways Mildred touched my life.

Mildred was also a client board member of North Mississippi Rural Legal Services for decades, possibly since its inception, and very close to the lawyers and staff there.

She was very active in local politics, and could be relied on to turn out the vote in Price Hill.  In a couple of municipal elections, she was instrumental in getting the voters to turn out at near-presidential levels, a real rarity for city elections for Black voters.

I’ve known Mildred for decades, both as a lawyer for her family, working with her on community and political issues, and as a friend.

Melanie Addington has a story on the bottom half of the Eagle that states the firm that handles licensing for Colonel Reb is going to withdraw it from licensing as of August 31st, with businesses allowed to sell off inventory after that date (which means that 1) they’ll get through football season;, and 2) they’ll bulk up inventory before that date, I’d bet).  The story begins:

The College Licensing Co., or CLC, the agent for the University of Mississippi responsible for issuing licensing agreements, released a memo this week to all licensees that the image of the Colonel may only be licensed through Aug. 31. After that, the image will be retired and enter the “College Vault” program. When that happens, the image can only be licensed for special occasions for historical use. “As we prepare to transition to a new mascot, the university has instructed CLC to place our Colonel Reb Trademark in the CLC College Vault program,” Director of Human Resources Clay Jones said. “The university will maintain its ownership rights in the Colonel Reb marks to reflect the logo’s place as part of the university’s history. Placing it in the vault program is an appropriate way to respect the mark and maintain ownership in it.”

Although Aug. 31 is the cut off date for the image, merchandise still in stock that was previously approved through the licensing company can remain until sold out.

She goes to Brian Ferguson of the Colonel Reb Foundation, who says this was tried before and didn’t work, and then expresses a surprisingly communitarian view of property ownership– after all, the University does own this thing.

“Before you completely eliminate something, you should get a consensus of the entire group,” Ferguson said. “They tried to eliminate the image before in 1997 and tried to remove it from merchandise, but it was very short lived. This could be another situation where this could occur and we will see the Colonel back on the sidelines in the next few years.”

This is the goofy point to which the descendents of the “Save your confederate money, boys” folks have arrived:  Not so much hoping to do the whole thing over, but lets go to the battle stations to bring back that 1970s vintage cartoon version of a 1930s vintage cartoon version of a plantation owner.