Intro:
Dan Nordheim: You’re listening to Life of the Record. Classic albums, told by the people who made them. My name is Dan Nordheim.
Big Star formed in Memphis, Tennessee in 1971 by Chris Bell, Alex Chilton, Andy Hummel and Jody Stephens. Bell, Hummel and Stephens had been mentored by Ardent Studios owner, John Fry, who conducted engineering classes and allowed them to use the studio during the night. They recorded under the names, Icewater and Rock City, but became Big Star when Alex Chilton joined the band. In 1971, they began recording what would become #1 Record, eventually released in the summer of 1972.
In this episode, for the 50th anniversary, drummer Jody Stephens, keyboardist, Terry Manning, and authors, Holly George-Warren and Rich Tupica reflect on how the album came together. This is the making of #1 Record.
Jody Stephens: #1 Record represents, I think a beginning for us all and, and maybe kind of a restart for Alex.
Terry Manning: I find #1 Record as the ultimate Big Star album. It's the most Chris and Alex together, which really is what Big Star turned into.
Rich Tupica: I think a lot of people connect with #1 Record the most, because it kind of has a little bit of everything. #1 Record is almost like the starter kit for Big Star.
Holly George-Warren: #1 Record, it's hard to believe it came out 50 years ago because it just sounds so fresh and it just rings true. There's an authenticity to that record that is timeless.
Jon Scott (Interviewer): The song is called “Feel,” it's by a new group called Big Star and their album, #1 Record. We have with us tonight, a couple members of the group, Andy Hummel and Alex Chilton are with us tonight. Good to have you with us. Uh, a lot of excitement about this album. So if you will kind of tell us a little bit about where it was recorded and the writing etcetera for the album.
Alex Chilton: Well, we started about a year ago and recorded up until February or so and then we started mixing.
Jon Scott (Interviewer): Where'd you record it?
Alex Chilton: Ardent.
Jon Scott (Interviewer): And you produced it yourself?
Alex Chilton: Yes.
Jon Scott (Interviewer): Is that a hard task for a group?
Alex Chilton: It was hard for us.
Jon Scott (Interviewer): Did you feel like you could do it yourself or from the beginning? Or did you feel like you needed an outside producer?
Alex Chilton: We felt like we could do it ourselves. We didn't want anybody else to mess it up.
Rich Tupica: Hi, I'm Rich Tupica, I am the author of There Was a Light: The Cosmic History of Chris Bell and the Rise of Big Star. That's an amazing thing about this record is that it's so refined and the songwriting is so good and the production is so good. Meanwhile, you have these college kids that hadn't toured, had never really done anything of note worthiness aside from Alex, who that was the Box Tops. Alex Chilton of course saw major success with the Box Tops, but Big Star was unknown. Their connection was that they knew John Fry, who owned a world class studio, Ardent Studios, and they were just able to do whatever they wanted and they were able to tweak sounds and redo things and re-record things and spend the time that it takes to make the perfect quote, unquote record. Most bands say, “Okay, we got this budget. You go in there, you have this much time. Get it done and get the hell out.” Whereas Big Star could just go in there and spend all night if they wanted to. So for them to have that opportunity made #1 Record very, very special because it shows what a band can do. It shows not only that, what an artist can do when money isn't an object.
Holly George-Warren: I'm Holly George-Warren. I'm the author of A Man Called Destruction: The Life and Music of Alex Chilton, from Box Tops to Big Star to Backdoor Man. The very cool thing about #1 Record and Big Star coming together as it did to make that record, is it just, it is such a great example of how place and time can be part of this process that is this long slow maturation. And it ends up yielding a really masterful album, like #1 Record. Because you know, these guys were all from Memphis. They all came from different backgrounds and had very different life experiences, especially Chris and Alex, of course. But the thing is they did grow up in a very important city and the history of American music, in a very incredible time of music making, fifties and the sixties. And they first actually met just, you know, when garage bands were happening everywhere because of the Beatles’ success, they played briefly in a little combo called The Jynx back in ‘65 and they went on their own path. And then it's just so interesting that they, Chris and Alex in particular, would then meet up again when they were both really at crossroads in their lives. And they had both developed all these years as musicians, as songwriters and that's when they came together just at the perfect time. And then the other major factor here is the incredible Ardent Studio where a guy named John Fry, who started the studio, was himself, this musical genius, tinkerer, engineer who had opened the studio and loved to open his recording facilities to these guys in the hood who were very interested in learning how to engineer records and to record themselves. So Chris Bell was one of those so literally came under John Fry's tutelage at Ardent and learned his way around the studio, learned how to engineer, learned all the different phases of making a record.
Jody Stephens: Hi, it's Jody Stephens of Big Star, speaking about #1 Record and its 50th anniversary. How I came to join, what would become, Big Star. Chris Bell and I had a mutual friend, Andy Hummel and Andy was the catalyst in introducing me to Chris and John Fry and, and kind of the Ardent crew. So yeah, the three of us got together and, and played gigs off and on with various lineups. I think Tom Eubanks was part of one of those lineups and consequently, we got in the studio and cut some material prior to #1 Record. And I was 17 and I felt really lucky cause I'm walking into this world of Ardent Studios and John Fry. And it was like, I've said this before, it's like the Disney world of creative environments I think. I mean, you certainly have all the tools you need and we had all the time in the world. So back in the day we didn't have recording schools that prepped people to be engineers. So John Fry would conduct his own engineering classes and Chris and Andy and a lot of folks benefited from those and became engineers here. But primarily Chris, we were lucky to have that because Chris could engineer our demos and, as well as Andy, and we could take our time. So yeah it was interesting, you know, the first few visits, there'd be Staple Singers tapes in the control room cause Terry Manning mixed all the Staple Singers hits and Isaac Hayes had cut Hot Buttered Soul there. So it was immediately inspirational, you know, as John said, “Great things can happen at Ardent because great things have happened at Ardent.”
Terry Manning: I'm Terry Manning and I was the first official Ardent employee, but I played the keyboards, all the keyboards except on “India Song” on #1 Record, sang the harmonies with Chris and Alex, and was just a big part of the time of the Big Star scene, which was a whole bunch of us hanging out at Ardent Studios. As far as me and Ardent were concerned, I was the first employee of the Ardent Studio when John took it from the home studio he had. So when we moved to Ardent Studios on National Street, I became the first official employee actually paid to do things. And I would record my own things at night and I would engineer sessions for John. And then any people that started coming around or hanging around or other bands, we would know each other, Richard Rosebrough and Chris Bell, Jody, you know, everybody involved with the whole scene we had. We started hanging out at Chris Bell's back house way out in east Memphis, almost to Germantown. And there was a back house in a field on the property that his parents had bought. And we would hang out there and that would be our band rehearsal place, we put a dark room in there and it was just our gang hang place, you know, and then we just all would go in and start recording and it evolved into wanting to make some sort of album. So we got Tom Eubanks, Chris Bell, Jody Stephens, and me, and we made a band up to make an album. We eventually called it Rock City, at one point it was called Icewater. At one point it was called Christmas Future. But when we finished the album, we thought it'll be Rock City, but we couldn't get anybody to release the album. And we hadn't restarted Ardent Records yet, so there was no place for it. So we just sort of let it sit there. And then Chris said, “Well, let's put a new band together and record something new.” And I said, “Well, I really don't want to be in the band, I'll help, I'll sing, I'll play, I'll do whatever, but I don't want to be a band member because we had, at that point that would've been Tom Eubanks had just left and Alex was going to take his place in Rock City sort of. And so I wanted to leave and we got Andy Hummel, who was one of our gang also, to do bass. So anyway, it just morphed into recording what turned into #1 Record.
Jody Stephens: We all came together in like March at a jam session. And then that's what kind of paired down eventually to us as a three piece. And then somewhere around December, I think of ‘70 Andy, Chris and I played a venue downtown for a party and Alex came to see us at, I'm pretty sure it was at Chris's and Andy's request. And I think Alex may have been looking to join a band apparently at the time and I guess he liked what he saw. And so the four of us came together and then John Fry provided the environment and the space and the Petri dish at Ardent Studios and you know, along with his guidance and so that's how Big Star got started.
Jon Scott (Interviewer): And Andy Hummel and Alex Chilton are with us and a couple members are out of town or something?
Alex Chilton: Taking rests (laughs).
Jon Scott (Interviewer): Why don't you run down the personnel of the album for everybody.
Alex Chilton: Oh, Chris bell. He's not here tonight, he's in The Bahamas.
Andy Hummel: Yeah he was like the lead guitar player. Wrote about half the songs, I guess, did a lot of production.
Alex Chilton: And Jody Stephens, he's our drummer.
Andy Hummel: Yeah. And then me and Alex, I play bass and he plays lead guitar mostly, I guess, don't you? And everybody just kind of plays everything, I guess, more or less.
Jon Scott (Interviewer): Did everybody kind of help in producing the album also?
Andy Hummel: Yeah, they really, everybody just sort of contributed their ideas and it just sort of all came together, you know.
Terry Manning: We were all there together, all doing it together, having fun together, spending all night, night after night, recording in the studio together. So Chris had a vision, he loved The Beatles, he loved The Kinks, he loved The Who. He was trying to sort of put all of those things together. His mother was English, so he was, he considered himself at least half British. So he was sort of putting the British stamp on the Memphis band is the way he saw it. And he was there for virtually every second of #1 Record. I would say he's probably the only person who was there for every, every single minute of the recording of it. Cause I came in when I was going to play or sing something or do something and I'd get tired and go home sometimes and let them just, you know, do whatever they wanted through the night, lock up when you leave, kind of thing. But it was Chris's idea, it was his philosophy behind it. He was sort of running the show at that point, getting help from John when he needed it, from me if he needed it, of course, getting with Alex to write or co-write to make everything work.
Holly George-Warren: Yeah, I think Alex was so impressed that Chris had been able to pick up all these skills and had all this talent. Alex would've liked to have had that opportunity himself. And you would think, you know, he'd been in the American Recording Studio and cut all these albums and singles with the Box Tops. An you would think, he would've been able to learn the way that Chris did, but unfortunately Chips Moman and Dan Penn were kind of running the show there at American. They had this incredible team of session players that played on most of the Box Tops recordings. The actual band members only got to play their instruments on a few of those tracks. So Alex, you know, learned how to work with a microphone, he learned how to perform live on stage as a singer. But as far as all that behind the scenes kind of thing, he was not that knowledgeable as Chris was. But still I think both of them had this certain sense of, kind of self-assurance they knew what music was all about when they met up together. So I think they were really a couple of equals.
Jody Stephens: Once Alex joined the band, there was a definite intention to make a full album. Alex brought material he'd been working on and Chris brought material and Chris was really the primary pilot on this record and producer. And we were all a part of it. Me probably playing the least part in terms of production. But I think Alex and Andy and everybody had input, but Chris was probably the pilot of it all.
Rich Tupica: I think the end product was as close to Chris Bell's vision as possible. And then also Alex Chilton, you know, who brought great songs to the mix. Obviously he was happy with it too and while Chris is often credited as the visionary, Alex brought half the songs, if not a bit more. So they got the sound that they all wanted and, and they all understood it. I mean, Andy Hummel, Jody Stephens, they also loved The Beatles and, and The Kinks and Chris's love of British music just came through and Alex's knowledge of The Byrds and stuff, it all kind of just mixed together and they were all on the same page about what the sonic vision was. And they were able to execute it because they didn't have to pay a studio and they didn't have to go and do it at some rundown cheapo recording studio. They got to go to Ardent where John Fry bought only the best, everything he bought the best boards, he bought them world class guitar amps. And he opened up that universe to these college kids. Well, Alex wasn't in college, but the rest of the band was and said, “Hey, do whatever you want.” And the end result was #1 Record and it took like a year to make it. So that's what happens when you put Chris Bell, who's a perfectionist in charge of a record is he's gonna tweak and tweak and tweak and not stop until it lines up with what he wants it to sound like.
Terry Manning: When he started hanging out at Ardent, he was like eyes wide open, like, “Oh boy, this is a real recording place!” I mean, he really had his mindset on being an artist, being a producer, being a singer, being a writer, being a player. But #1 Record was Chris's baby. And he had put so much into it. His love, his philosophy, his talent really just threw everything into that. And he knew, he knew this was going to be huge. This was a great album. It was going to be an all-time classic. It was going to go to number one. Well, it didn't go to number one. But it is an all-time classic, what, 50 years later. So he won in the end, but he lost at that time because he saw it as a total failure. He thought he had done everything he could do. His super talent, pushing it to the max and nothing happened. I would say that the failure at that time of release of #1 Record is what broke Chris's heart. And in a way, what killed him.
“Feel”
Rich Tupica: So “Feel” was a Chris Bell original. And that's the song where you can hear his Led Zeppelin, he likes that big guitar rock sound. Chris has often thought of as the kind of soft, emotional guy, but he was also very much into Led Zeppelin. So that's where you get songs, like “Feel,” it's just his love of rock music and harder rock music.
Jody Stephens: So “Feel,” probably to some extent, you know, Led Zeppelin's influence, because we were all Led Zeppelin fans, especially Chris. And you know, Terry had mixed Led Zeppelin III. So yeah that was kind of Chris doing Robert Plant and kind of belting it out.
Terry Manning: “Feel” is Chris's song and he's singing it on the record, of course, but usually the one who wrote it or did the greater part of writing it, was the singer on it. Well more of the songs were written by one person than not kind of the same as Lennon/McCartney.
Rich Tupica: Usually they brought the songs fully formed. So Chris would've maybe added a line to an Alex song and vice versa. So that was really how they collaborated was very minimal, but they would, when they were in the studio while they were recording it, they would lob out ideas and say, “Hey, I think this might work a little bit better, this guitar line might work over top of this.” And so they would add accents to each other's songs.
Holly George-Warren: The cool thing about Alex and Chris coming together and to begin this amazing collaboration is that they both had some songs, some newly written songs that they were able to introduce to each other and they were quite different songs. And both guys' songs could use a little helping hand when it came to finishing the songs to get them into shape for recording. So one of those first songs that Chris brought was “Feel” and I believe actually he ended up getting together with Alex over at Alex's parents' house, where Alex was back living again, after he moved back from New York City to Memphis and just played him that song. It was missing a few lyrics here and there that I think Alex came up with but I think the song was pretty much fully written, except for a few lines here and there. You know, it was really exciting for Alex to work with someone who was a songwriter, who was a really great guitar player that he felt he could learn from. I think it really got things off to a good start, “Feel.”
Terry Manning: But “Feel,” yeah that was an early song we had done on Rock City. It's virtually the same on Rock City, but we did a new vocal and I think maybe one guitar overdub,
Jody Stephens: Andrew Love played the sax, kind of that dirty sax. Andrew Love of the Memphis Horns.
Rich Tupica: That was the Memphis Horns, a popular studio group that did a lot of work on a lot of records in Memphis at the time. And I'm sure the Memphis Horns were there recording a Stax single or something. And then they said, “Hey, come in, we need some help on this.” And that's also where you hear the Memphis stuff coming through.
Big Star found a way to make it their own and to insert some Memphis in there. You know, it's not just this British rock ripoff group. They didn't lose their identity. I mean, when you see Big Star in the photos, Alex and Andy Hummel would be wearing blue jeans and these like button up shirts and these like almost Southern big belt buckles and the cowboy-ish type boots. That wasn’t hip back then. They were their own thing. I mean, they weren't ashamed of being from Memphis, which is why the record is so different because it's not just them going, “Hey, let's go in there and recreate The Beatles, which Chris did a bit of that in his pre-groups, like with Icewater. Eventually he found his footing and then he found Alex who came fully formed as a songwriter as well. And so it's just a mixture of the love of Beatles and their hometown and where they grew up. What they heard on their radio comes through on #1 Record.
Terry Manning: It's just a great song. It is somewhat prophetic because I think…I will wander a bit here. I think so much of Big Star and Chris in particular is a dichotomy. They're very poppy sounding. They're very upbeat, but there's always a thread of danger underneath it. There's always a lurking of something's amiss a little bit somewhere. And if you look at the lyrics carefully, you can see that. You can see, I mean, who wants a pop song about “Feel like I'm dying and you know, I won't make it to the end” and all the kind of dire circumstances, but it starts the album, it feels happy. It's upbeat, it’s a great rock pop tune. So I think that there's never been another band that I've heard who are so adept at mixing the happy and the sad, the up and the down, the yes and the no, all in one place and making it come out as a pop album or some people would say power pop album, which if that is a genre, I would say was invented at Ardent Studios by Big Star and some of the rest of the people there. But I've never heard another band who did that so well, just took the very deep psychological feelings and put them into a happy sounding song. That's just the way I see it. There's something really deep, especially in #1 Record.
“The Ballad of El Goodo”
Jody Stephens: You know, if I ever had to pick one Big Star song, it would be “Ballad of El Goodo” because that does embody I think everything that Big Star was about. Certainly attitude, Alex's voice and lyrics, but the harmonies and the way the guitar parts interplay and all that. So that kind of embodies that for #1 Record.
Rich Tupica: Jody tells a great story about how that's a song where they just started playing and the entire band just fell into line when they were at Ardent. When they started recording that, you know, Jody knew right when to come in with the drums and it just had a vibe right from the go. They did very few takes of that because they nailed it so quickly. That's just a band, all being on the same page. It's a band that should be together. Big Star's one of those bands, like the Beatles, where bam, they were born to play in a band together.
Jody Stephens: First couple of times we went through that song, it was pretty realized from what I was playing, just because again, I connected so well with the music and it was interestingly enough, it was music that I appreciated as much as all those cover songs I'd been playing. You know, you add that excitement and then that adrenaline that kicks in, when you hear something that musically speaks to you and you just, I just responded accordingly. I mean, some of the fills and stuff, I kind of developed through the song. And again, the benefit of being able to record in the studio, we can record the track and then I can have a listen and think, “Oh, okay, here's what I need to do, I'd like to develop the drum part and stuff.” So the bum bum bum bum, you know, in the tom and snare was just kind of almost instantaneous. You just kind of let, you just let your feelings flow and you don't, I'm not much of an intellectual player, but I think I'm a pretty visceral player.
Terry Manning: That's one of my all-time favorites. It's just so lush and so powerful. Boy, I mean, what a statement for a band of young kids, we were all really young and Alex may have been a year younger than me. I know Chris was, but just young kids, like 19, 20, something like that. With these deep thoughts, I mean, these weren't just people singing, “Oh, I love you baby, which is fine.” They're thinking deep philosophical things. And just when you, you can listen to it and not think about that, you could dance to it. You can enjoy it, you can have fun or you could sit and listen and actually think of the words and go, “Oh my God. What are they saying?” So, yeah, “El Goodo” is the poster child of that thought.
Holly George-Warren: I mean, it's just, it's such a beautiful song and you can also really see the influence of, you know, it starts off with that beautiful fingerpicking. And Alex at that time was really working on learning how to fingerpick, and you can hear how that song had its beginnings as an acoustic number that he would've played at Folk City. In places like that, where he was doing like open mic nights, if you can believe it or not, in New York in the fall of 1970. So really all he was doing when he was living in New York was just sit around, working on his guitar all the time, working, working, working. And beginning at that period, I think mostly acoustic guitar because the main venues that he was performing in at the time were these acoustic, coffee houses in the West Village.
Rich Tupica: “Ballad of El Goodo,” Alex wrote that when he was in New York. And that's when Alex first started dipping his toe into his own songwriting. Right before Big Star, Alex was a Box Top. So he spent most of his time working on Box Tops stuff, singing other people's songs. Once Alex left the Box Tops, he found that he had time. So that's when he really started honing his guitar playing and his songwriting and his lyric writing. So Alex had messed around a bit with the guitar while he was in the Box Tops. But it's amazing to think that the guy who wrote the songs on #1 Record was a new guitar player. I believe Alex left the Box Tops in early 1970, and then they started recording #1 Record in ‘71, ‘72. And he wrote those songs, yknow, one of those is “The Ballad of El Goodo.” He's just sitting in an apartment, I think it was almost, not desperation, but Alex had hit a point in his life in his early twenties of going, “Well, what do I do now?” He was in the Box Tops this band that was on TV and selling records. And “The Letter” was a number one song. I mean, that's a very uncommon thing to happen to a young person. And then that was over.
Holly George-Warren: The period that Alex had left the Box Tops and was living in New York City, he started writing songs himself. And this, of course, following his life as being this major pop star, teen idol, beginning in 1967 with the Box Tops where he really, I think, suffered that kind of imposter syndrome where he felt like it was just some kind of crazy fluke that he ended up the lead singer of this band that had the number one song in the country, the summer of ‘67, “The Letter.” And I think he also, being such an artistic person and also such an independent kind of guy, that he really just gradually was deteriorating psychologically, due to being under the thumb of his producers and mainly his manager of the Box Tops and being kind of almost like stuck in this boy band that he didn't really have control over himself.
Rich Tupica: So I think Alex went to New York and regrouped and said, “I have to figure this out. And if I keep doing music, I'm not gonna fall in line with the Box Tops system again,” because he was just sick of singing other people's songs and some of the material he didn't like. So it was almost like a do or die thing. He went to New York, sat down with an acoustic guitar and started writing and learning. And so that's where some of those Alex songs like “Ballad of El Goodo” and some of the other #1 Record songs came from was Alex dipping his toe into the New York folk scene and learning how to be a songwriter.
Jody Stephens: It's like a universal statement of, “You don't have to do what people are asking you to do or telling you to do for the most part, you can kind of determine your own path. Ain’t no one gonna turn me around,” you know, and obviously that was Alex's life.
Holly George-Warren: You can also see maybe an undercurrent of, you know, his bristling against conformity or trying to have this, you know, “Go with what you're told to do,” which definitely would be in his head having finally escaped the clutches of his manager and being part of the Box Tops, where he really didn't have any sort of autonomy when it came to choosing which songs to do. And he even tried to write a few songs for the Box Tops and I think they did record a few, some of the last recordings. You know, basically it was just, I think, to appease him. So some of those lyrics in “The Ballad of El Goodo,” that I think are definitely applicable about, you know, to be on your own, to have your own vision and do what you want to without being told what to do.
Terry Manning: I was working with the Box Stops recording cause Dan Penn would bring over the previously tracked sessions to do Alex's vocal overdubs. And then backing vocals, strings, horns, whatever the overdubs were and then mix for the Box Tops albums. So Alex and I became very good friends and we would sit there and, I feel terrible about this now, but we would sit and laugh at Dan Penn and Spooner Oldham and Chips Moman, who all were from American Studios. And we thought they were the old guys because we were maybe three or four years younger, you know (laughs). So to us, they were old guys and they were telling us what to do, but, you know, we were being the rebellious young kids. So Alex came to me one day and said, “I want to quit the Box Tops. I've just had it. We've had our hits and the touring's getting boring. Everybody's telling me what to do. I want to write my own songs.”
Rich Tupica: This just falls back in line with Alex does what he wants to do. And eventually after playing in the Box Tops, Alex realized, “I don't wanna sing other people's songs. So I'm not going to.” So with Big Star, it's his first jump off into doing his own thing and being an independent person who sticks to his guns.
Terry Manning: I would say if there were one song that is an anthemic to counterculture, it might be “The Ballad of El Goodo,” because it just goes straight to the point. And it's, to me, just a very deep, deep song. Absolutely. It's anti-war anti-draft at the time. If you've ever seen the little video that they did of Alex walking into the federal building in downtown Memphis, where the draft board is, you know (laughs).
Jody Stephens: Andy Hummel was going to what was then Southwestern College. And he took a film class so he could check out a 16 millimeter camera. And he took some, he shot some film footage, some of which was to, to be used for “Thirteen” and some of which was used for “The Ballad of El Goodo.” In that footage, he shows Alex going to the draft board and then kind of opening the door and then deciding not to go in and, you know, for me, there was certainly a bit of that. And that film footage sort of suggests that.
Holly George-Warren: When Alex was living in New York City in 1970, it was a very political time. I mean, think about 1970, Kent State, all the Vietnam War protests. And of course, horribly, the draft. And Alex's own brother Howard was trying to get out of being drafted as a conscientious objector. And it was very much on everyone's minds. And Alex, I think even went to some protests and things like that when he was living in New York. You never really think of the guys being that political, but at that time he certainly was. And again, you think about how old he was in 1970. He didn't turn 20 until December, so he was 19. And so of course he was very much aware of what was going on and he started writing the song, “The Ballad of El Goodo.” That was not its original title, but it was definitely inspired by his brother's attempt to get out of being drafted and just the whole military complex that was taking young guys off and killing them in Vietnam.
Rich Tupica: Being a protest song obviously was of the times. Alex was in New York, surrounded by folk singers, going to folk clubs where they were undoubtedly singing protest songs. So that was Alex's mild jump off into the area of the protest song. And there's an early take where Alex mentions draft boards. So there's some lyrics that are a little bit more in your face protest, but then the final product that was taken out. So I almost feel that was Alex going, “I don't want to overdo it.” And I think on that record, the lyrics are poetic, you know, you have to listen to it and really digest it to gather that it's a protest song. Later on, Alex would be kind of embarrassed by those types of lyrics on #1 Record, the more poetic stuff. Because I feel like it was him showing himself.
“In the Street”
Holly George-Warren: “In the Street” is one of the songs that Alex said was his favorite Big Star songs, he really was happy with the way it turned out. And I think part of it, it has a little bit more of a kind of a spontaneous feel to it than say some of the other ones where the layering was so incredibly painstakingly done. It just has a little looser vibe to it. And, you know, Alex was his own worst critic, especially when it came to his lyrics writing. He was always really down on himself. You know, he didn't like a lot of the lyrics for “Ballad of El Goodo” and some of his other, you know, songs that we love. So I think the lyrics in that song were simple enough and kind of just kind of primal kind of rock and roll, teenage rock and roll type lyrics that he was happy with those.
Of course, you know, it became one of Alex's most lucrative copyrights because it was many, many, many years later, thanks to Ben Vaughn, it was recommended as being the theme song to That ‘70s Show and fortunately earned Alex a nice chunk of change, I'm happy to say.
Rich Tupica: “In the Street” was definitely written by Alex Chilton. And I believe the guitar riff was inspired by a riff originally written by Keith Sykes, a songwriter who now actually runs Ardent Studios (laughs).
Holly George-Warren: That's another reason that he liked “In the Street” because he was proud of himself, kind of pulling off this Blind Willie McTell lick that he had learned from his buddy Keith Sykes, that he was roommates with for a while in New York City.
Rich Tupica: So Alex kind of saw a line that Keith was doing and kind of re-squiggled that, you know, and kind of changed it for more of a bluesy type number, I think, into a pop song. So when Alex showed up at Ardent, he had already written that in New York. And then Chris, I believe added in some guitar lines over top of what Alex did.
Holly George-Warren: It's interesting, I think he just, you know, he thought Chris' vocals served the song as the lead vocal track on that song better than his. And so he went for it and of course you can hear him in the harmonies and things like that. And I think Chris loved the song too and came up with these really cool, you know, interplay between the guitars and, and that kind of thing. So Alex was very happy about that.
Rich Tupica: Chris is just really belting it out, shooting for the rafters. So on “In the Street,” you can hear Chris just really, really delivering on the vocals. And that's probably why Alex said, “Chris, you sing it.” Probably Alex sang it and it didn't have the oomph, then he heard Chris do it and said, “You just do it, it sounds better.” Alex, just let him take the reins and sing it.
Jody Stephens: In addition to the drums. I remember trying to imitate a clock a tick tock tick tock on the cowbell, using the higher part. And then the lower part of the cowbell to, I don't know, to maybe subliminally impart a feeling of time in the chorus. Yeah, it just, it just kind of came. You know, again, this is kind of a discovery thing for me. And Alex and Chris and Andy, I thought were already pros. So I'd get really excited when I came up with parts.
Terry Manning: Oh, it's just, it's one of my favorites on the album. I always loved it because again, it tells the teenage angst story. It goes deep into what teens in between being a kid and being an adult. There's all this stuff going on in your mind that I'm sure you remember and I remember, and everyone. You just, you're not sure of what is your place in the world. But you're trying to act out and you're doing these crazy things and whatever that you look back on as an adult say, “Why would I do that?” But you know, you do it and you have fun hopefully doing it. And it tells that story, much in the way that Chuck Berry would tell a teenage story. And he was telling stories as if he were an actor in a young person's scene. So I kind of think of “In the Street” as that kind of a song, that kind of a storytelling thing where, “We’re out late at night, we’re smashing street lights, we’re smoking this and drinking that and whatever.” And it's just, despite all that, it's one of my favorites (laughs).
Rich Tupica: With “In the Street,” think that's Alex almost being nostalgic for a time that he missed out on because he was busy touring and being a rock star. I mean, when you're in a touring band, Alex Chilton, you know, himself said, you know, people asked me, “What was it like to be in such a big band, a big famous band?” And he said, “I didn't even have time to think about it.” He was busy. It was a show, a hotel, a show, a hotel, travel, a show, a hotel travel. So I think Alex was revisiting a time of his life, he probably wished he could have lived more. You know, that time where you're in high school and you're hanging out with your friends and you're driving around and you're having fun, you're smoking joints or doing whatever. And Alex couldn't do that. He was on the road. I mean, he was making money and he was having fun in his own way. But that's Alex kind of showing that, “Hey, maybe high school and a normal life would've been kind of fun.” And Alex did some catching up when he got back (laughs). That did kind of reflect his life. They would drive around and hang out and have fun and him and Andy Hummel would go to clubs and, you know, drink and party together. So Alex did a lot of catching up almost, you know, and it became a problem eventually. But that song's definitely, I think, nostalgic for a time that he didn't get to live.
Holly George-Warren: Yeah, I mean, it kind of just makes you well up with tears a little bit to think about it. But years and years later, he said something to the effect of, “Looking back at the songs that he wrote, the lyrics that he wrote that were on #1 Record that, you know, most people like their first records, you know, if they're like 19 or 20 or, or whatever, something like that, they're writing about that period of their life, you know, when they're 19, 20, 21. And that's the age Chris and Alex were when they were writing these songs. But Alex thinks he was kind of, he didn't use the word stunted growth, but he kind of implied that in that from age 16, 17, and 18, you know, the guy was out on the road touring, doing one nighters. He did not at all have the typical teenage life that his buddies had back in Memphis. So he thinks that those songs that he was writing when he was 19, 20 were really kind of from the viewpoint of someone like 13, 14, 15, 16, looking back at, you know, that period of his life.
“Thirteen”
Rich Tupica: With “Thirteen,” once again, that's Alex being nostalgic for not being able to go to the dance and have a high school girlfriend and live a normal life.
That's another one Alex wrote in New York. It's amazing to think that's one of the first songs this guy wrote as a solo performer. You know, who writes “Ballad of El Goodo” and “Thirteen” in the first batch of songs that you work on. So Alex, for some reason out the gate was just fully formed. Obviously that's Alex being a folk singer again, it's him and his guitar. It's this very gentle song. And it's also just not Alex's attitude. Carol Ruleman Manning, who was a high school friend of the Big Star clique and was married to Terry Manning for a time. And she wound up, you know, helping with the album art for Big Star and worked at Ardent, but she knew them since they were all kids. And she said, “I dated Alex Chilton, I never knew him to walk anyone home for school (laughs) or do anything like that.” So it's almost Alex showing a side of himself that he wasn't necessarily comfortable actually presenting to people in real life. He wouldn't behave and be that sweet, charming guy necessarily back then. But it kind of shows that he kind of wanted to be that guy, you know, or at least it's coming through in that song.
Holly George-Warren: Well, of course, it's Alex Chilton at his most vulnerable, you know, just his vocals sound incredibly vulnerable. And it's just got a beautiful, beautiful melody. It's a song that, again, I think every kind of generation, over the past 50 years, when they hear that song, it really speaks to them, especially people, you know, that period of coming of age adolescence, you know, getting into your teens kind of puberty thing. I mean, it, it just really gives voice to those emotions that are so hard to articulate.
Rich Tupica: It’s almost like a glimpse in time. It doesn't tell this big overarching story. It's a very vivid picture of walking down the street and going to a dance. And, it talks about, you know, “Tell him what we said about ‘Paint it Black,’” And “Paint it Black” would’ve been Alex's era. So it's him looking back to that era and making it prettier than what it really was cause it's a very delicate, pretty song. Later on Alex moved away from that. So it's just that moment in time, Alex was comfortable enough to be vulnerable and to be, what he would probably consider a little bit, you know, mushy (laughs). Yeah it's nostalgic, just like some of his other tracks from that era.
Holly George-Warren: You know, a lot of his songs, he would later categorize as being maudlin. And again, I think he may have had a little bit of a cringe factor when it came to that one again, because of his own, you know, hyper-critical nature of his own work. But I think it's just a beautiful, beautiful song.
Jody Stephens: Oh that was beautiful. I just remember how sweet it was and the presence of Alex's voice and then the harmonies that Chris would do and the interplay of their guitar parts, their acoustic parts and how well thought out that was. And not to mention how well John Fry captured all that and just how brilliant those guitars sound.
Terry Manning: Oh we were just having fun doing acoustic guitars because we had so much like “Don’t Lie to Me” and “Feel” and “Goodo” really, powerful electric guitars. Cause Chris could really whack that 335 and get a sound out of it. But we wanted to be sure there was plenty of softness and acoustic things. I had just done right around that era, the Led Zeppelin III album, with Jimmy Page and it was the same concept of, “We're not only bashing away and singing loud and hard and doing whatever, we've got depth, we can do several styles.” And they love to do that, it's not chording acoustic guitar. Most people hear “Thirteen” and hear some of the other things that are acoustic and they start strumming. It's not strumming, it's finger picking those things. It's individual notes, (sings dee dee dee dee dee) individual notes with maybe two, at least two guitars, sometimes a third. But it's just getting a sound that's different. That's light, beautiful light, sweet. There's a sweetness to “Thirteen,” despite the lyrics (laughs). There's a sweetness there and most of that is coming from the soft voices and the picked acoustic guitars. It gives you so much space and room around things for the vocals to come through and to hear the harmonies. I'm amazed that that's the most streamed Big Star song because there's not even drums on it. Right?
Rich Tupica: When you listen to “Thirteen,” that could have been recorded yesterday, you know what I mean? It's just Alex's ability also to just craft a pop song. That's a song he wrote when he could barely, you know, he just learned the guitar, like I mentioned earlier. So it's amazing that he was able to craft such a perfect pop ballad.
Holly George-Warren: I'll never forget as long as I live, my own son, who was having a 13th birthday party, believe it or not. And all of a sudden I was upstairs and I hear he and a few of his buddies playing guitar, sitting in the living room and singing “Thirteen.” And I'm like, “Oh my gosh.” It was just like, I mean, I well up just thinking about that, but, you know, I think they learned it from Elliott Smith, you know, the Elliott Smith version. And my son didn't even really realize that it was written by a guy, you know, I was writing a book about at the time. It's pretty amazing how it really holds up. And it's one of those that will continue to stand the test of time.
“Don’t Lie to Me”
Holly George-Warren: “Don’t Lie to Me” is another Chris song that Alex really, really loved. I mean, even though Alex wrote these beautiful, you know, softly sung songs, at heart, I think he was really a rocker, you know, at that point. And I think it was really exciting for him to get to play in a band with electric instruments, even though he'd vowed to never be in a band again, after the Box Tops, he really wanted to do the singer-songwriter solo route. But I think it was just so much fun, that exchange of energy for him, that he loved it. And whenever a song has a lot of energy and a lot of emotion, it's gonna hit you in the chest. And I think that's something he liked about “Don’t Lie to Me.”
Jody Stephens: When I first heard it, I thought, “Ooh, this is just kind of like a boogie song or something.” And it was a departure from the kind of melodic melodies and, you know, songs that we were doing. But as we got into it, it kind of grew on me. You know, when that song starts, it's like a call to get out of your seat.
I mean, Alex's guitar part in that is just brilliant. And then actually Chris played bass on that. And as it started coming together, they brought in a couple of, there are two different thoughts about it. I remembered them as being Norton 750 motorcycles, and somebody else remembered them as being Harley-Davidsons.
Rich Tupica: So they're in Ardent Studios, recording this heavy kind of harder rock song in comparison to some of the rest of the album at least. Chris just happened to know friends who had these new motorcycles. Rather than adding in sound effects. He invited them to bring down their bikes one morning to the studio. So I believe they drove around the inside of, there's like this open air area in the middle of Ardent Studios, where they walked in their bikes and they just drove around this courtyard type area. And Chris mic'd up, these motorcycles driving around.
Holly George-Warren: I think it's so cool that they had, you know, motorcycles in the studio to do the sound effects and everything. And that was, yeah, the brand new one. They started out recording #1 Record at the original Ardent Studio. And then, over the course of the making of the record, the new beautiful fancy one with two recording studio rooms, Studio A and B was completed. So they were able to finish tracking the record there when they wheeled them into the room and got some oil spots on the floor and everything, and did not make John Fry very happy about his beautiful new studio.
Rich Tupica: Apparently the studio had filled up with like exhaust fumes and it was really loud and really stinky in there. And John Fry unexpectedly popped into the studio and walked in and immediately smelled quite gnarly motorcycle fumes just bursting through his very, very nice studio. So apparently that's one of the first times they saw John Fry not too happy at Ardent Studios. John Fry was famously a very mellow, low key level headed guy. It took a lot to irritate him, but that's one of the things that truly pissed off (laughs) John Fry early on. And it just shows Chris being a rule breaker. I mean, Chris was not afraid to break a few rules in order to make a song a little bit better or have his vision and not letting anything get his way.
He also, like Alex, stuck to his guns and you couldn't tell him what to do. If he had it in his head that there's gonna be motorcycles, there's gonna be motorcycles. And that's why you can still hear those today. I mean, so when you hear those motors roar, just know that moments later, John Fry, you know, walked in and kind of gave Chris some shit about it. So it's a pretty funny anecdote of Chris bell being a rebel.
Terry Manning: (laughs) I saw it coming and I left. I wasn't there for it, I thought, “This is crazy. I don't want to be around this.” So I thought that was a little over the top, but it was never my favorite. I love the album to death, but that's my least favorite on the album probably cause it's just sort of going overboard and not trying as hard to be philosophical or to be sweet or to be beautiful or whatever. But it's still a great song to me. That's just, I was surprised it made the album in a way because it's just sort of a screamy fun, crazy song.
Jody Stephens: Well it's Chris and Alex singing it together and maybe Andy and maybe me, I think we all were singing lead. Of course when it got mixed, it probably featured Alex and Chris a lot more. But it was just one of those things where we were all singing and trying to do it with some grit.
Holly George-Warren: Even through Chris Bell was known as being this perfectionist in the studio and making people redo parts over and over and over and over many, many, many times driving everybody crazy. And, you know, Andy Hummel and Chris coming to like, you know, fisticuffs over it because him telling Andy what to do and to redo the base parts and da, da, da, da, da. At the same time, he did know when to leave in some, you know, so-called mistakes because sometimes the mistakes make the song just so much more visceral and alive and raw and real.
Rich Tupica: Yeah that's the part where, you know, #1 Record is a bit sloppy and I think that's intentional. So I think that's the one where Chris said, “Hey, we're gonna let this one be a little bit loose and have some rough edges around it.” He wanted it to sound a little bit meaner, but yeah, I mean, it's one of those songs where it doesn't sound like anything else on the record.
“The India Song”
Rich Tupica: Yeah so that's Andy Hummel's song. I believe that's Big Star going, “Hey, with The Beatles, you have Lennon/McCartney and then you have Ringo doing ‘Octopus's Garden’ or ‘Yellow Submarine.’” I almost feel like that was their, “Hey, let's get a one off type track from Andy on here.” More now I'm seeing people defending that song. It used to be a lot of people would really drag that as, “Oh, that's the only song I don't like on the record.” But I'm seeing more people kind of stand up for it. For me, “The India Song” is like “Sloop John B” on Pet Sounds. It's almost like there's all these very personal songs and all these very heartfelt songs. And then suddenly you're like whisked away to this other dimension. It's like the dream sequence, it doesn't fit in anywhere else, but it kind of breaks up the record in a perfect way.
Jody Stephens: It's my favorite escape song of all time, just such a beautiful innocent, but a bit dark… “I'd like to go to India, live in a big white house, drink gin and tonics and play a grand piano.” It’s just that kind of imagery. “Find a new girl who says she feels the same. Let no one know till we're gone.” It’s just, all those kind of escape things. Those are like adolescent fantasies.
Terry Manning: I love that song a lot. I've heard people put it down and say, “It shouldn't be on the album. It's not as good or whatever.” But come on. I mean, one song out of all the songs on that great album and it's beautiful, it was Andy just singing his heart out and he was really trying hard and I loved, I just loved it. He played the Mellotron. He wrote it, he sang and I wanted it on the record. At least one person said it shouldn't be there at the time, but I won't say who.
Holly George-Warren: Not to genderize the song, but you know, I am a woman and I have to say for me, it's like such a girly girl song. And I love, I still love that song, even though I know it's not as cool as the others. And you know, interestingly enough, Alex loved that song (laughs). Which is kind of funny, because again, he would kind of, you know, castigate himself about his maudlin lyrics or trying too hard lyrics and things like that. But I think the feeling that comes across in Andy's song, I think he was nursing, you know, some sort of a breakup, broken heart or something. And I believe he said he was very much inspired by Joni Mitchell and her song, “Carey.” He was trying to capture that and it is such an idealized, you know, version of living in the forest in India, sipping gin and tonics. I mean, today we'd probably be like, “Ooh, kind of colonialist version of India, right?” Which is not cool, but I think it's just, it's a fantasy song, it’s a romance song. And, I like it, I think it's a beautiful song. And Andy just kind of, I think maybe he was a little buzzed one night or whatever, went into Ardent and just sat down and recorded that song. Cause again, he had taken that John Fry, recording class, you know, and had a key and knew how knew his way around the studio and Alex heard it and just loved it and really insisted they put it on the record.
Jody Stephens: So, yeah, it was just a very sweet song. I played, we didn't have any claves so I just took a pair of drumsticks and kind of held them like claves and played that part throughout “The India Song.” It was Andy and Alex, both singing lead. It's the two of them and their voices mixed. Andy wasn't keen on singing lead, especially by himself, I think.
Holly George-Warren: Sadly, just before Andy passed away, he was on this very cool panel, Big Star panel at SXSW. And he, I believe if I'm not mistaken, he mentioned something about that song and how Alex's encouragement really, you know, gave him confidence because Alex did like the song so much. You know, the one thing about that song I would say is I think all the tracks on the record are pretty timeless and it would be really hard to pinpoint when they were written, because you know, they're about these timeless emotions you go through as a person growing up and coming of age and falling in love and breaking up and testing your wings and you know, all those kind of things. But I guess that one definitely rings a little bit more of that period of that 1970s kind of fantasy hippie counterculture, you know, idealism,
Rich Tupica: It's the departure and it's almost like that break from the heaviness. So I appreciate that song. I think it breaks the record in half quite well.
“When My Baby’s Beside Me”
Jon Scott (Interviewer): And, we flip the album over again and get into Side 2. One of the songs on Side 2 is going to be the single is that right?
Alex Chilton: The first one, it's a biggie.
Jon Scott (Interviewer): Did you pick the single or?
Andy Hummel: Yeah, sort of, I guess. Everybody in the world picked a single, you know, we kind of got opinions from everybody that had anything to do with anything.
Jon Scott (Interviewer): You happy with the choice or?
Andy Hummel: I guess you have to be, I guess it'll probably work. Yeah it sounds like pretty good single material.
Rich Tupica: “When My Baby’s Beside Me,” that was the first single. It's surprising that they didn't pick “In the Street” as the lead off single. But also “When My Baby’s Beside Me” is just a very hooky pop song. I mean, “When my baby’s beside me,” that sounds like that's a very pop lyric. So that's probably why they chose that as, as the jump off first lead single on the record.
Jody Stephens: Sounded like a single to me. And I don't, I'm not sure I was part of that process of, you know, what the best singles might be. Although it did sound like one, certainly “Thirteen” sounded certainly like a single, “Feel,” “In the Street.” Yeah, that was fun. Again, it's creating a drum part because it just, there's such a great energy and melodicism I guess if that's a word to what Alex and the way that was played. It was fun. It was, you know, a bit of a rocker, kind of up tempo.
Terry Manning: I have a lot of memory of that because I'm singing co-lead with Alex on that. He came to me with the song in the Studio, B at the old Studio B at Ardent and said, “I really want a Beach Boys voice on this.” And he said, “I know you've got the Beach Boy voice (laughs). Will you sing with me on it?” So we went out together. He sang the lead, like in the verses and when it gets to the chorus, (sings) “When my baby’s beside me,” I would join in and we sang that, co-sang that together in unison. It's not a harmony of course, it's just a unison voice, cause he just wanted that Carl Wilson-y thing in the background there. That's maybe my favorite one on the record partly because I'm singing co-lead on it. One of my all time favorites.
Holly George-Warren: “When My Baby’s Beside Me” is another one of those songs that Alex actually liked. It's one that he would do on occasion, throughout the rest of his career, way after the Big Star days were over. Again, I think it's a little bit more honed down the lyrics. It’s a little bit simpler and I think, you know, for Alex, simpler was better.
Rich Tupica: Alex liked to have fun with rock and roll. At least, later on, he would cover all these soul songs and these, you know, real funky songs and not make it too serious. You know, Alex's favorite era of music stopped in like 1966, like as soon as prog rock and heavy stuff, where rock and roll started taking itself too seriously, Alex started checking out. He, for kind of being a serious guy, preferred his music to be a little bit lighter in less dramatic and less over the top with the poetic lyrics and all that.
Holly George-Warren: Alex talked about how when he and Chris got together, you know, around 1970, when they, re-met up, when Chris was in New York, trying to get a deal for some recordings he had done in Memphis and they started jamming together. And I can just see them, you know, crunched in this little tiny apartment in New York City and playing these, mid 60 songs, you know, Beatles and Stones songs that they had, played together back in ‘65 in their garage band days back in Memphis. And I think, “When My Baby’s Beside Me” kind of has that kind of feel to it.
Terry Manning: In 2004, I guess it was, we went to Austin for the SXSW thing. There was a big panel discussion on Big Star music and Big Star played at the biggest venue there. So Alex said, “Hey, you want to come and sing? We'll sing for the first time in 35 years or whatever, we'll sing ‘When My Baby’s Beside Me’ again.” So I actually got to go on stage with Big Star and co-lead sing “When My Baby’s Beside Me” again for the first time together, since we did it on the record, which was amazing. And I've got a photograph, somebody took in the audience of that, which I treasure it so great. To see me and Alex singing that song again, after all those years.
“My Life Is Right”
Jody Stephens: The first song that we did was “Life Is Right.” Pre-Alex, we cut it before he joined, you know, in kind of ramping up to do #1 Record.
Rich Tupica: So yeah, like we've mentioned, #1 Record was compiled, it was like a hodgepodge of songs from Alex and Chris. So Alex had written these songs, but hadn't recorded them yet. Chris had written some songs, some of them were recorded, some of them weren’t. And so what Chris brought to the table was some songs that he'd done with his bands, Icewater and Rock City. “My Life Is Right” was a Rock City track. And that was a collab with Tom Eubanks, who was the singer in Rock City. Tom and Chris wrote that song together. And I believe when they were writing it, sitting in Chris Bell's room, Chris kind of coached Tom on how to sing it. So Tom brought some of the lyrics, Chris wrote the music. Chris kind of coached the vocals and then Chris wound up being the singer on it. Even the Rock City version, Tom was going to sing it and then Tom said, “Hey, how about you just sing it? You sound good, singing it.” So, yeah, so that was essentially just a Rock City song sitting at Ardent unreleased. It was on a tape reel and then Chris goes, well, “Hey, why don't I use that audio for #1 Record? So they used that and just overdubbed some stuff on top of it. So that's actually a Rock City track that they kind of just layered and improved and built upon.
Terry Manning: Yeah, that's almost exactly from the Rock City album I'm playing the piano. Tom is probably on bass and singing and of course, Tom, co-wrote it with Chris. And I remember when we were recording that, Chris was really set, “The piano's so important in this. I really want a great piano on this song.” So I was really working hard on the piano, the Chickering grand piano we had in the studio there on National Street. Yeah. That's another great song. And it's very much Tom Eubanks and Chris.
Rich Tupica: So once they decided, “Hey, we're going to include, ‘My Life Is Right,’ they had to call Tom Eubanks because he's a co-writer on it. And Tom, Chris Bell calls him up saying, “Hey, we want to include ‘My Life Is Right’ on this new record I'm doing with Big Star, my new band. And we want the song credits to be ‘Bell/Chilton.’ Would you mind?”
Terry Manning: And Tom just flat refused, “Absolutely not. Don't even put it on the album if I don't get the writer's credit on it cause I wrote the song with Chris.” So fortunately for everybody John capitulated and left that song of Bell and Eubanks. yeah,
Holly George-Warren: Yeah I guess, Tom, you know, felt some ownership and I think Tom said it was his idea actually for the song. So Chris adhered to his wishes and left his name on it cause otherwise, Tom said, “If you don't credit me, just don't put it on your record.”
Rich Tupica: Tom refused. But he also understood Chris wasn't doing that trying to mask or undermine. It wasn't a slight to Tom. The reason they wanted that was because of The Beatles, you know, they wanted it to appear, that Lennon/McCartney songwriter credit, as soon as you throw in Eubanks, it throws off that perfect Beatle scenario of you got all these songs by Bell/Chilton, and then the one off from Ringo, AKA, Andy Hummel. So that's the one thing where Tom Eubanks, didn't let down and he said, “Hey, now if you're putting my music on there, I want my credit for it.”
Holly George-Warren: Thank goodness Chris put it on the record, but yeah, everything else that's what's made it kind of fun over the years to decipher who wrote what and who saying what, you know, cause their voices sound so blended on a lot of vocal lines and things like that. But I love that whole Lennon/McCartney idea that they came up with for that album.
“Give Me Another Chance”
Jon Scott (Interviewer): And there's other other things on the album that could you say can be played on FM stations.
Andy Hummel: And yeah, I would kind of say that maybe the second half of this side that you've got on right now would be like, FM material.
Alex Chilton: You’re crazy. You're really crazy.
Andy Hummel: You don't think that's…
Alex Chilton: You just, you're into all that easy listening stuff.
Rich Tupica: “Give Me Another Chance” is very melancholy, and acoustic and stripped down, and it kind of sets the mood of Big Star for that last half of the record where it kind of tailspins into this melancholiness. Yeah, “Give Me Another Chance” was one of the first songs that they worked on in the studio together. So I believe the first session they had, Alex and Chris worked on that one and I think there's a real rough demo of them working on that one. So that was the icebreaker.
Jody Stephens: I didn't play on it, but I sure thought it was pretty amazing. Chris's background vocals are just beautiful, stunning and yeah, another sweet song. And Alex to me, you know, being vulnerable.
Holly George-Warren: Alex was an incredible singer. And, you know, he was a mimic too. Anybody who saw his later shows, his solo shows in the eighties and nineties, you know, he could kind of imitate so many different styles of singing. And even when you go back and listen to some of the things he was doing with Terry Manning for that record, 1970. He would try out his different voices for these different, you know, for the same song, he'd try them in a different vocal style. So he was definitely moving away from that Dan Penn influence, you know, raspy, gritty Box Tops, “The Letter” style of singing into the kind of pretty voice.
Terry Manning: He was a man of many voices obviously. I would say the Box Tops voice was the one most, not his real voice. He was putting on an affectation for that, of course, led by Dan Penn, the producer. Dan had guided that vocal into the Box Tops. Alex did it, of course, and he didn't hate doing it. He was great at it, but Dan was sort of fostering it along in a soulful way, wanting him to sing more like a black soul R&B guy, you know?
Rich Tupica: So that's what he got known for locally was, “Hey, this kid has a soulful voice, but he's this 16, 17 year old kid.” It was almost a novelty thing. And obviously the Box Tops found fame through that voice. You know, it's a very notable voice. And with #1 Record, that notable voice is absent. You don't even know it’s the same guy. You know, I've seen some people online question like, “Hey, is that even Alex actually singing on the Box Tops record?” There was like a conspiracy theory by a few random people on the internet saying, “I don't even think that's Alex,” but it was. He was just able to turn it on and turn it off. So Alex left that gruff voice at the door with Big Star. Alex was a very gifted singer, Alex was a gifted guitar player, he was just a gifted, natural musician. But he was finding his own voice on #1 Record.
Terry Manning: The Box Tops voice started morphing from that. And Alex used it a little bit on the 1970 album and he used what became the higher, Big Star voice a little bit. I think on, The EMI Song,” which is very reminiscent of some of the Big Star voicings that he used. In fact, that song is very reminiscent of “Give Me Another Chance.” Alex even said to me, “Ooh, I've got a new song I wrote sort of based on our ‘EMI song, the smile for me.’ It's called ‘Give Me Another Chance.’ What do you think?” I said, “I love it.” He said, “Do you mind if I just take it?” He used some of the chord progression that we had done. I said, “No, it's great, go with it.”
Holly George-Warren: Terry, I know was a huge fan of that style of his singing and was encouraging him to do that. So I think, you know, again, he was a young guy at that time and he was really able to reach those notes. He had a really great ear and he was a strong singer. You know, he had really built up his stamina as a vocalist from doing just, I mean, sometimes the Box Tops would do like two or three shows a day (laughs), you know, night after night, these one nighters. So, you know, he definitely had the stamina to be able to do it at that time. So I just think his ability to hit, hit those higher notes and sound as good as he did, but yet there would still be this kind of, you know, vulnerability. It would still have that kind of, a little bit of a rawness to it, in Alex's style.
I think it's again, another beautiful song. And another one that shows that vulnerability that Alex later would not be so happy to put out there in the world. But anyway, this is one that he's really lambasted and said, he thought it was a horrible song and didn't like it and thought it was maudlin and all that kind of thing. But I like it a lot.
Terry Manning: That's my, one of my favorites on #1 Record, because it is very deep, heartfelt Alex. The words on that are just stunning to me, the lyrics and his vocal presentation. Alex could do any voice. He was amazing, such a deep talent, and he loved to hide that talent when he could too (laughs).
Holly George-Warren: The way their vocals sound together and the building and the adding, it just gives it this incredible dynamic and momentum that just adds to the power of the song. And again, the orchestration on this song is so amazing, I think that's Terry Manning on piano and the Mellotron. It’s just got such a cool kind of Beatley kind of “Fool on the Hill” ish kind of vibe to it or something. I don't know, I love it.
Jody Stephens: That's where Wayne Jackson would come in. Wayne Jackson played flugelhorn on that. If you know, it's there, you can hear it and certainly influences the way you hear the song.
“Try Again”
Terry Manning: I think Alex was looked on by the other band members and especially Chris and me and John Fry and anyone involved as the guy that had had the success. He had had a number one record. In fact, not just a number one record, but thee number one record of 1967, “The Letter,” I mean, it was huge and that's what Chris wanted so badly. He wanted that success, he wanted that adoration. He wanted the big tour and the chart numbers and gold records on the wall kind of thing. And Alex had all that. So there was a, an odd pairing from the beginning between Chris and Alex.
I just remember Chris coming in with songs and saying, “What do you think?” He was trying to learn to write songs, he didn't know how. One of his favorite songs was “I Can See for Miles” by The Who he would play that over and over and say, “Why can't I write a song like that? Why can't I write a song like this?” But I said, “Chris, you're writing good. Just keep at it. Just think, you know, play and think, play and think. You've got the talent.” And he would bring a song like “Feel” in and I would just, “Yeah, it's great. Let's record it.” But he still was unsure, you know, “Is it really good? Is it, am I really getting there?” So there was always that kind of bringing along things like, “Come on, get with it. It's okay.” You know, and then by the time he got the confidence as when we finished Rock City and he was sort of looking forward to what became Big Star, he got a lot more confident. So he could come in and actually say, “Here's what we're gonna do.” Rather than, “Should we do this or what do you think?” You know, he needed that confidence. Everyone does, everyone needs that at first, you just don't know when you're starting out. But he learned really well. If there's one guy leading a band, there's always a little separation between everyone else. So here we had two guys leading a band and they were really in competition in a way, but their competition, all with the same goal, make a great record, a great song, have success, have a hit, whatever, but I just always felt, and still to this day do that there was never quite the coming together of Chris and Alex.
Rich Tupica: Chris Bell obviously was a moody guy, even back then. Later on he, of course went through serious bouts of depression. When you read the lyrics to “Try Again,” you can see that, “Hey, this guy in his early twenties is going through some stuff.” You know, “I feel the pain, but I'll try again.” That sort of thing. I mean, that's something I think a lot of early twenty somethings can identify with though. I mean, it's a very confusing time. When you're at that age, your friends are very important to you. You know, the older you get, you talk to your friends occasionally, and it's not that big of a deal. You know, you get other priorities in life. But Chris Bell was at that time where he was just a moody teenager, freshly early twenty somethings guy. And he wasn't afraid to to show some of that in his music. I mean later on, some of those emotions were essentially what drove him out of the band. I mean, you know, Alex Chilton and him had power struggles on who was kind of in charge. Chris Bell was friends with John Fry and then John Fry started hanging out with Alex and you know, they'd be hanging out listening to records and, and maybe Chris didn’t get invited over one time. And, you know, in hindsight, it's probably not that big of a deal till you put yourself in their shoes. When you're that age, if you find out, “Hey, all my buddies were hanging out partying and they didn't invite me,” that really stings. And I think Chris took it very hard. Him kind of not being the main focus at Ardent and for John Fry anymore. And John Fry was like, “Oh, hey, Alex is cool. Like we're gonna hang out and throw on some Beatles records.” That really pissed Chris off, quite frankly. And I think we've all been there where you kind of feel like, “Hey, is my friend circle kind of outcasting me right now, you know, is that, is that what's happening?” And then also you have Chris going, “Well, I formed this band. You all know each other because of me. You know, I brought Alex to the studio, I'm friends with Andy, I know John Fry.” So Chris is kind of one that pulled them all together. So as soon as you have Chris be the guy who brought this whole friend group together, he masterminded this record, and while Alex did bring half the songs, Chris was the sonic visionary of the band. And then you have him kind of being, or at least he felt he was an outcast.
Holly George-Warren: I think, you know, both of them harbored some resentments or jealousies, you know, I mean, again, these were young guys. I mean, think about how hard it is to keep bands together. So it was no exception for these guys and they were all going through personal things at the time.
Rich Tupica: Tom Eubanks, who you know, recorded with Chris and he's credited on the record, he said, “It's just band shit. It's, you know, a little bit of ego, it's, you know, taking stuff personally and not communicating well.” Chris Bell had this grudge almost against Chilton, but Chilton later on said, “Chris never even told me. I saw him being kind of strange to me,” but like they never sat down and said, “Hey, let's talk this out.” And that's one of John Fry's regrets was that he didn't sit down with him and, “Okay, everyone, let's talk about this.” I mean that's, I think it's just of the era back then. You didn't talk about stuff. You know, people didn't, you know, go to therapists and deal with problems. You just let 'em fester until they became a bigger problem. So you had this jealousy thing going on with Chris, and then you had Alex going, “I don't know what the hell is going on with this guy. Is he mad at me? He's not telling me.” And Alex is the type of guy where he's not gonna say, “Hey, what's your problem with me?” Alex is just going to go on living his life.
Holly George-Warren: Chris, you know, Ugh. It's, you know, the guy was a complicated guy and had just so much inner turmoil. And I think music was such an important channel for him to be able to get through some difficulties he was feeling and things like that. So when you hear that sensitivity in his vocals, in a song, like “Try Again,” it's, you know, really gets to you.
Terry Manning: Yeah, I love “Try Again” as well. Again, one of those deeply acoustic guitar stuff on there. That's the third one that was from Rock City. How many songs on #1 Record? Twelve songs so a fourth of the songs came from the Rock City album. But that's great. You know, we didn't release it at the time. They're good recordings and we can just roll it over, morph it into something else. Chris redid the vocal and redid, I think a guitar, the crux of it, the basis of it came from the same recording as we used on the Rock City and Icewater album.
Jody Stephens: Chris Bell, you know, was a big Joni Mitchell fan and not being a guitar player, I'm not sure how many people were doing special tunings like that. I know Joni Mitchell kind of created her own tunings. So you know, Chris picked up on that and then lyrically, you know, just a reflection of what he was going through. It's moving and you feel like it's very disturbing for him.
Holly George-Warren: You can so see how Chris Bell was under the sway of not only George Harrison's guitar playing, but also just his vocal style and his sensibility even, maybe his spirituality even at this point. Because you can really see that George Harrison vibe in the song, Chris, even at that point of his life was a searcher for some sort of spiritual practice in his life. And you know, maybe this song is kind of showing that search that he was in at that time.
Terry Manning: Chris had started not very spiritual when I first met him. I mean, just regular, we'll say, you know, not overly religious or anything as was John Fry. John was an atheist for years and completely just turned his nose up to any religion. And then John somehow had an awakening and became very deeply religious and Chris started doing it too. And Chris, they would be together a lot I think, just talking religious things, religious philosophy and Christian things, you know, that religion. So Chris was always philosophical about things, always thinking. And so I think “Try Again,” yeah that's another one that is just deeply thoughtful. And of course on his, the later Chris solo demo album I Am the Cosmos group, there's a lot of Christian-related things.
“Watch the Sunrise”
Holly George-Warren: “Watch the Sunrise” is just such a perfect closer. It's just so gorgeous. Even just kind of symbolically, it's it kind of, “Oh, this is, we're starting a new chapter in our lives. A new day has dawned, you know, with this album, #1 Record, Big Star!”
Jon Scott (Interviewer): Is the album out yet in the stores or?
Andy Hummel: Yeah, the album should have hit the stores today. I believe. That's what they told us, but you know, you never can tell when they’re actually gonna get there.
Jon Scott (Interviewer): So Big Star, #1 Record’s the album. It’s on Ardent, it should be in the stores.
Andy Hummel: Yeah buy it (laughs).
Jody Stephens: Chris had great expectations for the record and, and certainly the name, Big Star was, well, it was inspired by the grocery store, across the street from Ardent when Ardent was on National. So there was that Big Star and that pretense of #1 Record. And for me, it was just all kind of a pie in the sky anyway. I was just grateful to have been part of the process and to be able to hold that record in my hand. Cause you know, making a career out of music's a really, it's a long shot. That's what Chris had his sights set on. And I think, you know, certainly I was disappointed, but I didn't have the great expectations. I think that Chris had.
Rich Tupica: It was just this weird thing where they recorded a record and then kind of went, “Well now what do we do?” They had good distribution. What they thought was good distribution, it turned out not to be obviously. So I think they were kind of hoping, “Hey, well, Ardent Records is teamed up with Stax so our records should be able to get in stores. We hired this in-house PR team to get us press and they did get press. But everyone knows, it got lost in the shuffle. Big Star’s record just didn't make it in stores. And so when they're getting airplay and you know, they also paid and they had people pushing to radio. So Big Star was getting positive reviews. Big Star was getting radio play. But if people heard it, when they went to the store and they couldn't buy it.
Jody Stephens: I mean, the press was amazing. Distribution bogged down because of Stax and their lack of effort, I think. But it was, Al Bell had done a deal with Clive Davis at Columbia and then Clive Davis left shortly after that. And Columbia wasn't interested in carrying out that agreement and that's where, kind of distribution failed, I think.
Holly George-Warren: Oh God, it's just a tragedy. I mean, this album personifies the vagaries of the music business and oh my gosh, you know, if this album had come out, you know, now in the era we're living in, it would be huge. It would've gone viral. It would've, you know, just been this tremendous success. And it's a tragedy that due to issues with the record label. You know, Stax wasn't an Anglofile rock and roll label, they were an incredible soul music label. And so the label didn't really know what to do with it. And people were like, “Oh, a group from Memphis, they must be, you know, another black cool R&B band.” And of course they weren't. So, I mean, there was just so many problems with that.
Rich Tupica: Chris Bell, you know, was upset that the record didn't get out there. And eventually, he asked John Fry to bring in Al Bell from Stax, you know, this head honcho over at Stax. And Chris Bell was asking him questions and it didn't really amount to anything, but it just shows that Chris Bell was like, “Hey, I want accountability here. What's going on?” You know, in hindsight, Chris Bell was right. You know, there were problems. So I think back then, Chris Bell was painted as this, “Oh God, he's bitching about the record again, he's complaining that there's not distribution and blah, blah, blah.” Well, he was right. And I'm not saying this would've been a million seller, I mean, who knows, maybe it could have been in every store and it would've been the same scenario, but you never know. But Chris bell was right that the records weren't getting into stores and balls were being dropped all over the place. And it's not a record they pulled together in a few weeks or a month. That's a year of work. I think he would've been happy to at least know, “Hey, if it's in the stores and people aren't buying it, fine.” He just wanted to have a fair shot. And I think that's a very rational thing to do, especially after working on this night, after night, after night in a studio and the amount of tweaking and working and reworking he did, and they're bringing in motorcycles (laughs) and, you know, he brought in Alex Chilton and he formed this whole band and he got John Fry to help with the engineering and mixing of it. Who, John Fry was amazing in the studio, so he got this really pristine record. And I think it wasn't the fact that they weren't rock stars, it was the fact that it never got a fair shake that really pissed him off.
Jody Stephens: Yeah Chris was frustrated with that and I think he was also frustrated with Alex being spotlighted in the press. Because it was, you know, like I said, Chris was sort of the pilot of that record and put a lot of his heart and soul and time into it and getting it to just where he wanted it to be. But the press would spotlight Alex because you know, he'd been in the Box Tops, it makes sense. You know, it's the kind of thing where you don't know the band Big Star, but you know, of Alex Chilton from the Box Tops and they were just creating that bridge from one to the other. So I think at the end of the day, Chris, quit the band, you know, at least in part because of that.
Holly George-Warren: And then just the personal issues with the guys. I think poor Chris had just put so much of himself and was, I guess, egocentric enough to believe that this masterful album would be accepted as such by the general public at large. And when it wasn't, he was just absolutely devastated. He could not deal with the fact that it was not a number one record. You know, it did not live up to this kind of cheeky name that they gave it, you know. And Big Star did not become as successful as the Big Star grocery store chain (laughs), which inspired the band's name, you know? Those realities were just really, really, really difficult for him to accept. And it caused quite a bit of psychological distress for him. And just the combination of all those factors is just incredibly depressing that it was, you know, just kind of a little blip. I forgot the actual number of records sold, but it's like just horribly low, horribly low.
Terry Manning: We sold maybe 4,000 records. Maybe, I don't know. It wasn't much, which at that time today, if you could sell as a new band, 4,000 of anything, it would be seen as a huge success cause nobody buys things anymore. But at that time you had to sell a hundred thousand to even get noticed. But anyway, when none of that happened, no real success came of it, I think it broke Chris's heart. And probably led him into the spiral that was some substance things that happened and drinking and whatever it was that he got into. And then, the car crash that ultimately killed him.
Rich Tupica: I think Rick Clark said that best when he said, “That's the last glimmer of hope on #1 Record. And that's just that folk music, Alex Chilton, really embracing that. And I think that's the song where it's almost like, that's the bookend. There's another track, but that's the last real song on it and it kind of says, “The world doesn't have to end right now. We've been singing about some real deep stuff, but the world continues on.” So I think that's kind of almost the real bookend to the record.
Jody Stephens: “Watch the Sunrise,” it's just a beautiful song. And again, that's another kind of different tuning, “Watch the Sunrise.” Sounds like a 12-string to me. And we don't know because Chris erased the multitracks. And I don't know why he erased them to tell you the truth, because I mean, you know, disappointment over, certainly mentions in the press and how that was treated, I wouldn't think would bring about, you know, the need to erase, bulk erase, you know, an album.
Terry Manning: Well, I got word. I can't remember who told me. But somebody told me that they had talked to Chris or heard from Chris and he was going up to the studio. By this time, the new Ardent studio on Madison Street, we had moved. So he was going there and he was going to get all the #1 Record tapes and erase them. Cause he had tried his hardest and it wasn't as good as he could do. He just, he was very conflicted, but he decided he was going to erase the tapes. I thought, “Oh my God, that can't happen.” So I rushed up to the studio and I got the mixed master, the original mixed master and took it out of the box that said, “Big Star #1 Record” on it and stuck it in another box that said, “Tom and the Turtles,” which was some more Tom Eubanks things that I'd been working on. And I took the Tom and the Turtles stuff and put it in the Big Star box and just closed it up, just in case. Well then let Chris did get the multitrack masters. The, I guess they were eight track, probably, multitrack masters and he did destroy them, they're gone forever. But anyway, the multitrack masters were destroyed, but I saved the stereo master and we did have copies, backup copies also. So he didn't destroy it, but he came into the studio, he was so angry. The Ardent studio on Madison, has ain interior garden, the studio is all around it. But the interior is a garden, open air garden with big plate glass windows all around. So he came in with his boots and smashed one of those windows, smashed the back door to the studio. I had to come in and clean up all kinds of blood and clean up the glass and make sure he got to the doctor and everything. And it was just a, that's some of the hard times we look back on, that weren't fun or good or happy about Big Star. Again, I think it shows in the music that there was not just one attitude of joy, happiness, pop music, whatever. And there wasn't one attitude of anger, angst, and hatefulness or whatever. There was some of everything and it just mixed together. And that was Chris really. He was terribly conflicted and beautifully conflicted because he's just created incredible art out of this confliction, so…
“ST 100/6”
Jon Scott (Interviewer): The last three songs are, uh, what?
Andy Hummel: Oh, the first one would be “Give Me Another Chance.”
Alex Chilton: Yeah, “Try Again,” “Watch the Sunrise,” and “ST 100/6.”
Jon Scott (Interviewer): What does that mean?
Andy Hummel: Oh, it's a long story. Yeah, that was…
Alex Chilton: Nevermind. Nevermind.
Andy Hummel: Yeah just play the music!
Holly George-Warren: And then we have “ST 100/6” (laughs). I think that coda is just kind of like the music nerd thing, right? You know, there’s just this little throwaway at the end.
Rich Tupica: “ST 100/6,” the name of the song was a fake catalog number they came up with for #1 Record. The record was taking so long to come out and they were joking that they were going to bootleg the record and release it themselves. And that would be the catalog number. So they end it with that. It's like an inside joke.
Jody Stephens: Oh yeah, the catalog number, I don't know. It's a gorgeous song and sort of haunting. And the reverb or echo, we have echo chambers here and they can sound very haunting. And the vocals and the harmonies that Chris sang. Yeah, it was cool. And there's actually, I can't remember what's on the record, but the long version, there are drums and you know, that sort of thing. We kind of flesh it out a bit. And it could be that the limitations of vinyl too. You know, maybe 40 minutes on a vinyl record? Maybe even less than that. And then the kind of sonics of it degrade because of what you have to do to accommodate more grooves that fit in onto that piece of vinyl.
Rich Tupica: But yeah, that song was supposed to be bigger. I mean, if you listen to a song called “The Preacher” by Rock City, there's a part in there where Chris does this great guitar solo. He sings this whole part, but for whatever reason, it's a stripped down version on #1 Record. But listen to the live version on the Lafayette's record and you'll hear Alex play that song, how it was supposed to be with that excerpt from “The Preacher” inserted in there, where it's Chris Bell doing this very George Harrison-style guitar. I think it’s one of his best guitar solos next to “Cosmos.” So yeah, that song, it's almost just like the album just kind of fading out into nothingness and I think it's the perfect way to close it. I almost wish they would've recorded it with that guitar solo and that part. But instead we just got that little snippet to kind of trail off into the cosmos.
Holly George-Warren: Listening back to #1 Record, fifty years after it came out. I mean, it's just mind boggling that an album made so many decades ago still just has this incredible freshness, timeless quality. I mean, I really would have to say that I think it holds up with some of the, you know, best albums ever made.
Terry Manning: Is it fifty years for, since the release? Is that the deal? Good God. I can't believe that. I so wish Chris were here to revel in that. And I so wish Alex were here to revel in it as well. Although he wouldn't, he would pretend it wasn't anything to him. Where Chris would be very, very glad about it, what's happened with it. So you can look on the legacy of it as some of the greatest pop music ever made that just would not die. It wouldn't go away. You could not stop it. It kept picking up here and picking up there and rearing its head and coming back and somebody finding it. And I don't know of any other album project then #1 Record followed by Radio City that did anything like that. So it's a singular thing, the Big Star phenomenon. It's just incredible to look back on it, yet one of the biggest protagonists, one of the biggest creators of it, never even knew it, Chris Bell. Had no idea. So it's just a legacy, like no other. And I'm amazed by it. I'm very proud to have been a small part of it.
Jody Stephens: And, you know, hell at the end of the day, it worked out for all of us. Well, Chris died early on. He died in December of ‘78. But you know, his music has certainly, has lived and grown, in the hearts of people. And so he's kind of realized a dream. And Alex, you know, Alex always got to do what he wanted to do and be himself and you know, kind of later on, he would, he saw enough income from it that he could remain independent and kind of make his own decisions. And Andy, you know, he loved playing music, but he also wanted to start a family and wanted a career path. So he went back to school and he was successful at that. He had a beautiful family. And you know, I wind up here at Ardent on the business side of things in ‘87 and have had an amazing kind of time here. So you know, we're all lucky guys and it all worked out and thanks to John Fry. And certainly, it’s very heartening to know that, Chris's dreams, you know, are being realized, even if posthumously.
Outro:
Dan Nordheim: Visit lifeoftherecord.com for more information about Big Star. You’ll also find a link to stream or purchase #1 Record. Thanks for listening.
Album Credits:
Christopher Bell - Guitars, Vocals
Alex Chilton - Guitars, Vocals
Andy Hummel - Bass Guitar, Piano, Vocals
Jody Stephens - Drums, Vocals
John Fry - Executive Producer
Terry Manning - Piano, Vocals
Andrew Love - Tenor Saxophone
Wayne Jackson - Flugelhorn
Mixed by John Fry
Mastered by Larry Nix
"Feel" (Bell/Chilton)
"The Ballad of El Goodo" (Bell/Chilton)
"In the Street" (Bell/Chilton)
"Thirteen" (Bell/Chilton)
"Don't Lie to Me" (Bell/Chilton)
"The India Song" (Hummel)
"When My Baby's Beside Me" (Bell/Chilton)
"My Life Is Right" (Bell/Eubanks)
"Give Me Another Chance" (Bell/Chilton)
"Try Again" (Bell/Chilton)
"Watch the Sunrise" (Bell/Chilton)
"ST 100/6" (Bell/Chilton)
East, Memphis (BMI)
Koala Birdees (ASCAP)
©+℗ Ardent Records, Distributed by Stax Records, Inc. 1972
Episode Credits:
Theme Music:
“Winter Cold” by North Home
Intro/Outro Music:
“As Long As We Talk About It” by 2nd Grade from the album, Wish You Were Here Tour Revisited
© Double Double Whammy, 2021
℗ Written by Peter Gill (BMI)
Episode produced, edited and mixed by Dan Nordheim
Additional mixing and mastering by Jeremy Whitwam