Alex Chilton of the Box Tops and Big Star died yesterday. He was a little shy of 70. You maybe didn't know about him but he was a pretty good songwriter. No Zevon, but then, even Zevon wasn't really Zevon sometimes. You probably know some of Big Star's music, whether you know it or not. Here's the song you probably know as the theme from That 70's Show.
Nice song, well written, gets at the teenage angst, the dumbass kind. Pleasant to listen to. Good quality pop music. Here's another song Chilton wrote, "I'm in Love With a Girl." It's pretty simple and straightforward. Lots of people copied it.
So who did that mild songwriter influence? Well, this seminal punk act, for one.
You can hear Chilton's influence in this song by REM:
And in this one:
So who did Alex Chilton draw inspiration from? Guitar great Steve Cropper, who you guys have seen me mention before. What did Cropper do? Well, this song, for one, which has been called the greatest guitar lick of all time by some pretty accomplished gunslingers.
You would also know Cropper from here:
The bassist in the Blues Brothers um... Boys... Band is Donald "Duck" Dunn, who played bass with Cropper on the Fried Green Onions video just up above. And I've told you all before about Matt "Guitar" Murphy, from the Blues Brothers. Matt Murphy's roots stretch back to the Mississippi Delta, and if he didn't play with all the great bluesmen, he came damn close. I've showed this next one before but it bears repeating - it's Matt's Boogie, and he's accompanied by blues greats Memphis Slim, Bill Stepney, and Willie Dixon.
Now this is a long trip around the Horn, but I was thinking about Alex Chilton's passing today. I wasn't a huge fan. I kind of knew about Big Star but didn't really stop to listen to them until today. They've always been just part of life's soundtrack for me; music that is pleasant enough, I guess. But when I stopped and listened, I found that they were pretty good, and Chilton was a really good song writer. Hell, everybody covered his songs, from punk bands to country artists.
So we've come from that 70's show, to some of the foundational blues artists of the 20th Century, the foundational punk group, and the foundational .alt rock group. Alex Chilton may not have been as much of a Big Star as he set out to be at first, but he occupies a privileged place among great musicians. He was very influential, and in his day he played with some good artists, and was inspired by and tried to play just like some great artists. Those of us who like rock, particularly .alt rock, owed the guy a beer. RIP, Alex.
9 comments:
I liked the part where he once talked about having hits without being famous in an interview. My kind of guy.
-B
A little shy of 70? Like a decade.
Bluenoser - I agree. He reminded me a bit of a poor man's Warren Zevon. If you know about Zevon, you're crazy about him. Few people know all about him. Most people, if they know a bit about him go, "you mean you're nuts about the Werewolves of London guy? THAT guy? I don't get it." I didn't know about Chilton until I looked into it. Except for Chilton's automotive manuals. I know *all* about them. BTW, off-topic, but I'd be interested in hearing your take on the Ovechkin suspension, and the Cooke and Downie non-suspensions.
Anon - sorry. The story I read initially pegged him as 69. Now I find out he's 59 from other articles. Want a job as a fact checker? If you take it up I'll refund the fees you pay to read my stuff.
OK Jim you asked so this may get long.
To try and keep a long story short. We who invented the game and go back to watching the original six will tell you that because there are so many teams now the number of players needed now has brought the level of talent down, big time.
What I have also noticed over the years that as the cheap shots have increased so have the number of times that players take dives... that said.
Ovechkin was a desperation hit gone bad. He couldn't catch him and should have let him go. Usually we in my day would have been with the guy and carried the check into the boards keeping everyones body up high where the boards give. All players know that if you hit the boards low at speed you are going to be hurt. That's engineering and physics, plus experience with broken bones.
He boarded him plain and simple, because there was no body contact into the boards. Old school. I would not have given a suspension because that kind of shot has been handed out in hockey forever. He just hit the boards the wrong way.
Now the Cooke deal. That boy is and asshole. It shows how low the so called talent level has sunk in the NHL. Now I don't know what you watch for hockey commentary down there Jim but up here Hockey Night In Canada has been a staple since time began. In that is Coaches Corner with Ron MacLean and Don Cherry.
I'm going to give you the link to this and these guys talk for us. Pay attention. Also, pay hard attention to the intro to the Coaches Corner and see what Bobby Orr takes, goes down, with 1970's gear no helmet, passes the puck and makes an assist.
You may also appreciate the police tribute.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTVOisOIKvk
You asked...
-B
I used to watch Hockey Night in Canada when I went to school at Oswego. We got the Canuck stations on the television so that was a treat. Barry Melrose is pretty good, but hockey in the U.S. is a little bit corporate, so you'd never get flamethrowing like Cherry can dish out. I really like Cherry - sometimes he goes a bit overboard on the non-hockey stuff but his heart is in the right place. I like his take on Cooke. I didn't realize what a complete POS the guy was until I saw that collection of cheapshots. What a turd.
Now I know we've differed on fighting & enforcers in the past, but here's where I see a role for a punisher. I don't like goons, but a decent player who can put the hurt on somebody to police up the game where the refs & league wont - I don't have a problem with that. I played rugby and generally speaking fighting isn't tolerated but there are ways to get a guy to stop being a malicious, injurious cheap shot artist if the ref isn't going to step up and stop it. Scott Simon is a guy who was good at putting a stop to low skill goon play, and guys like Tie Domi (a decent player and good guy off the ice, though more of a rep as a fighter) were great at putting a stop to that nonsense.
My take on Ovechkin is complicated. I think he may be overcompensating for the rap on Euros being soft. I don't know what goes on in the hockey locker room but I bet the rookie Ovechkin heard some abuse. He also seems to be a natural born scrapper. Chippy, in your face, a provocateur, and even when he's playing clean he's capable of putting a devastating hit on you. I agree with your take on Ovie - definitely boarding, but not suspension material. Game misconduct *maybe* but only because Ovechkin is falling into a habit of being cheap. The video looks like it was a bit of a nasty hit, but also that Campbell loses his footing as it's happening, which makes it much worse than it should have been normally. Ovechkin needed to finish the hit and carry Campbell into the boards, or not do it at all.
Guys who bitch about Ovechkin though - I think they make a bit too much of it. Yeah, I wish he'd play cleaner, but he's a lot like a healthy (and sane) version of Eric Lindros - he's way beyond most of the league physically and even in a Lady Bing year would leave a lot of guys bruised up. A good comparison I heard recently from a guy who has seen 50 years of hockey, is Gordie Howe. My jaw dropped about that, but then I looked at it and saw Howe finished his long career with over 2000 penalty minutes, which works out to 57 per year. That's Joe Thornton territory. "Dirty" player Ovechkin finished last year with 72 PIM - so he's 5 minors and one fistfight per year dirtier than Howe was over the course of the season. Puts it in perspective.
FWIW, I thought back to the Lemieux/Draper hit that damn near killed Draper, with over a hundred stitches needed and reconstructive surgery and all that. Lemieux's penalty? A two game suspension. That was Claude Lemieux, regular 100-150 PIM/year guy.
Maybe Ovie isn't as dirty as some people make him out to be.
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1wwko_the-replacements-alex-chilton_music
ooooh...naughty...note the blue-note t-shirt.
-Matt
Well argued points all Jim. As a ref said of Howe, he could do something in front of you and be up the other end of the ice before you realized he did it. Like I said the talent pool was a lot better in those days, all round I guess.
Could you imagine how crappy a line sprint would be at the tour if they made the field three times as big and let in a whole pile of less talented riders?
Well that's what they did to the NHL.
-B
Bn - How 'bout that. We're talking about a sport that at the top level, doesn't have enough good players to play it. You have to wonder about the nature of the game, the nature of the rules, if it can't be expanded past 6-8 teams without the quality of play taking a fatal beating. I still think that the NBA has the most athletic athletes of any sport in the world, but the NHL has the best athletes. It's just like the NBA... except on ice. I didn't realize how exceptional they were until one day when I saw Gretzky, live, squirt in between two guys checking him near the crease with the puck, circle behind the goal with somebody else checking him, and squirt out next to the crease on the other side, where he was hit again - only to make a perfect pass to a teammate (probably Robitaille, with the Rangers at that point) who could have scored by just standing still and letting the puck ricochet off him. Robitaille caught it on the bounce and lofted it up into the one hole. 20 thousand people were silent for maybe 10 seconds then everybody started cheering because it was such a remarkable, ridiculous thing Gretzky just did.
Did I mention that Gretzky was on the visiting team? People bemoan the fact ice hockey doesn't have a huge following outside of a couple countries but it doesn't bug me. There is more art in it than sport when it is played well, even by some of the goon/choreographers. Not everybody gets art, not everybody can get hockey. I'm happy I get it.
Well, except for playoff hockey. Everybody can understand that. And if you don't, there's something clearly wrong with you.
green onions, one of the best of all time. have you checked out the al kooper version?
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