"Big Star: The Short Life, Painful Death, and Unexpected Resurrection of the Kings of Power Pop" (Chicago Review Press)
By Rob Jovanovic

At the beginning of his candid, creditable history, Big Star: The Short Life, Painful Death, and Unexpected Resurrection of the Kings of Power Pop, Rob Jovanovic reprints a passage from Twain: “Ah, the dreams of our youth, how beautiful they are, and how perishable!” Jovanovic thus serves notice that this will be a melancholy tale.

In its Seventies incarnation, Big Star, “the missing link between the power-pop bands of the 1960s and the alternative rockers of the 1980s and 1990s,” recorded three brilliant discs: #1 Record (1972), Radio City (1974), and Third (1975). Though critically acclaimed, these albums, due in large measure to distribution problems, failed commercially. The Memphis group consisted of four gifted musicians: Chris Bell, Andy Hummel, Jody Stephens, and former Box Top Alex Chilton. But attrition wracked Big Star. Dejected by the band’s commercial failure, Bell left after the first LP. Hummel, determined to complete his college studies, departed after the second. Only Stephens and Chilton stayed to make the storied Third (also known as Sister Lovers and Beale St. Green).

Bell struggled with drug abuse and other personal challenges. He died at the age of twenty-seven in a single car crash in December, 1978. Fourteen years later, Rykodisc released I Am the Cosmos, an exceptional collection of his solo work. In 1993, Big Star reunited with original members Stephens and Chilton. Jon Auer and Ken Stringfellow of the Posies rounded out the revived band. The group played a number of concerts, including an unforgettable show at the University of Missouri, Columbia, on April 25, 1993. Rykodisc also released this performance. Big Star unveiled a new album, In Space, in 2005. (Rolling Stone gave it 3 ½ stars and declared that In Space “is no #1 Record, but at its brightest, it is Big Star in every way.”)

Alcohol and drugs played a major role in the Big Star story. “We drank a lot,” Hummel admits, “and took all manner of drugs.” In fact, he continues, many of the band’s “songs were conceived and realized in a total Quaalude daze.” Jovanovic discusses the intimate life of Big Star, as well. According to Hummel, Chilton was a carnal “madman…The guy had more sexual energy than any man I ever met. He would get drunk…take Quaaludes, smoke dope, and still be able to [perform]! One night he got like that and did a girl right there on the floor of the B studio with everyone in the room!” Sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll, indeed. Big Star devotees include the Bangles, Matthew Sweet, Greg Dulli, Bobby Gillespie, the Replacements, and Peter Buck. The R.E.M. guitarist once declared that, “We’ve sort of flirted with greatness, but we’ve yet to make a record as good as Revolver or Highway 61 Revisited or Exile on Main Street or Big Star’s third.”

Jovanovic examines the contributions of producers John Fry and Jim Dickinson, photographer William Eggleston, musician and Chilton flame Lesa Aldridge, and many others involved in the Big Star saga. Chilton and Aldridge, Jovanovic asserts, “enjoyed a strange relationship of fighting (sometimes physically), making-up, drinking and drug abuse.” Their “stormy relationship” formed “the vortex at the heart of Big Star’s legendary third album.” He also fills his volume with numerous nuggets. To list a few: Andy Hummel’s mother was Miss America, 1947; Alex Chilton, while staying with Beach Boy Dennis Wilson in California, met Charles Manson; Chilton declined an offer to be lead singer for Blood, Sweat & Tears; and Chris Bell, while visiting London in 1974, met Geoff Emerick, George Martin, and Paul McCartney. Bell described his brief time with Paul as “the singularly most heavy moment of my life.”

Pop scholar Jovanovic, author of such studies as Perfect Sound Forever: The Story of Pavement, A Version of Reason: The Search for Richey Edwards, Nirvana: The Complete Recording Sessions, and Michael Stipe: The Biography, is a diligent researcher and adept writer. This book’s compellingly-titled chapters—including “Mississippi didn’t like guys with long hair,” “He turned to me and shot Demerol down his throat with a syringe,” and “We toasted his health with cheap beer and snacks from Taco Bell”—demand immediate reading. Big Star may well stand as the definitive history of the band. Three cheers for Rob Jovanovic!