Big Star - 3rd / Sister Lovers / Beale St. Green - Ryko mini-LP same as regular CD?

I know the master for #1 Record is at Compass Point....
Where are the masters for the second and third record being held?

 

When I interned at Ardent in the 1990, they were all there.

 

Anyone know anything about Chilton's Sister Lovers demos?

 

Needle drop of Beale Street Green? All I know about is the CD on a label called Balboa Pop. There WAS no vinyl of that.

Different source tape. Slightly better quality on there (I think it's 1-2 generations closer to Alex's cassette than the Dusted In Memphis vinyl album).

I prefer the live Motel Blues. It's just about perfect, IMHO. The studio version doesn't have the same passion or power. I REALLY wish Ryko had put that WLIR tape (Big Star Live) out unedited, tho.

I avoid writing about Alex as a person or trying to put things in writing like 'Alex thought this' or whatever, because he just hates it. I only write about the music. So I'm not going to go anywhere near speculating on what Alex thinks about Big Star then or now.

I will say that while I didn't stick around after the SXSW Austin gig (and indeed, didn't run in to him on that trip, to my disappointment), several people told me that after the band played, he came out front and was chatting, smiling, and happily signing autographs.

The big tragedy to me is that Chris Bell put his whole life & soul & heart into #1 Record, and by all accounts (again, I never met him) was just completely devastated by its abject failure in the marketplace.

And Chris never lived for the whole cult of Big Star to arrive. Didn't live to see hundreds of bands emulating their sound. Didn't live to hear In the Street on That '70s Show (put tears in my eyes the night the show debuted, let me tell you). Didn't live to know that at the hippest English label at one point, Creation, Alan McGee forced every band he signed to listen to Big Star.

That Chris never realized how much his music affected people, I find heart-breaking.

 

A subject I've been thinking about lately

I was almost tempted to start a thread about such artists - Nick Drake is another obvious example

How #1 Record wasn't huge I simply can't understand - were the problems at Stax the reason?

I just bought Jovanovic's book - been meaning too for a while and my rediscovering "3rd" pushed me over the edge. I expect I'll understand how Big Star failed to make it by reading the book although I don't see what possible circumstances could keep one of the greatest bands of all time from succeding

 

Point well taken.

Indeed. And that Cosmos/Sister single is just powerful. I certainly don't think we should build monuments to artists and make them obscenely rich, but they should at least know while they're alive how much their work means to an appreciative audience. Hell, they should just know they have an appreciative audience.

 

Where is the studio version found?

 

Cosmos and the version of You and Your Sister with Alex on the single are two of my favorite songs ever. I think we had those on cassette before the single came out, it was three songs, the 'alternate' versions of both those that are on the Ryko CD and the song called I Don't Know. Not the versions used on the single, but they all came out on the album.

I do think John Fry has the masters to Radio City and Sister Lovers.

 

The studio version is on that boot mentioned earlier.

Alec might be including it on his compilation, but I forgot to ask him about that particular song.

BTW, a friend in Memphis just turned me on to Gimmer Nicholson. He did an album at Ardent of acoustic multi-tracked guitar stuff that's extremely hard to categorize. 1968. Terry put it out on his Lucky Seven label and you can get it thru his website. I just got one last month, and it's pretty darned good, especially the opening track, Millennial Harbinger.

If you like Chris Bell's acoustic guitar sounds on #1 Record, then you'll want to hear this. It sure sounds for all the world like it's where Chris came up with that sound (tho to be fair, I think you can't underestimate Terry's role as a mentor/guitar engineer either).

Oh, and to answer a question upthread, Another Place, Another Time, and You (or whatever it's called) is definitely a Bell composition. BUT, given that at that time Chris' Beatles obsession extended to all Big Star tracks being jointly credited to Bell/Chilton, it's very likely it would have been a Bell/Chilton track if released. Like the Beatles, tho, most Big Star songs were written separately. See my story for details.

 

Yes, I completely agree !! "Christopher Idylls" is just another one of those masterpieces lost to the ages. Sadly, I did not manage to get in touch with Gimmer before his passing some years ago. I just wanted to tell how much this record means to me.

Terry Manning and Gimmer were talking about doing a follow-up to his 1968 album just before he died. Sadly, it came to nothing

The 1980 Peabody LP of "Christopher Idylls" is simply mindblowing in terms of sound. A very scant test-pressing was also done on the second incarnation of the Ardent label under the catalogue number ADS-2801.

I wholeheartedly recommend everybody that are into the sound of those Big Star records (#1 record primarily) to seek it out !!

 

I've been guilty of quoting Alex on a few things over the years but I try not to do it. If you've ever met him you know just how enigmatic (and private) he can be.

My favorite conversations with him were always about the Beach Boys and not Big Star. He's a huge fan of them and has some pretty deep insights gained from touring and hanging out with them during the Box Tops days. He alluded to Carl teaching him how to properly play guitar. I don't know if that's really the case but it could be. I've seen him play Solar System and Honkin' Down The Highway live on several occasions.

Y'know - he's a survivor in the grand scheme of things. In some ways he's been his own worst enemy but really, he's an artist in a way I could never be. I have very few heroes in the rock biz. But he's sure one of them. Those Big Star records meant so much to me, growing up in the extreme cultural backwater the deep south can be. When I heard Radio City in 1975 I realized it was OK to want to sound like something other than the Allmans or the Marshall Tucker Band - and I still love the Allmans!

It's very much his fault that I started writing songs and playing guitar the way I do. I remember telling him that soon after we met and he just sighed and said in his wonderful whiny voice "I'm so sorry".

Bob

 

I believe I finally found the interview in which Eggleston "solves" the mystery of "Nature Boy" ;

http://www.kultureflash.net/archive/104/priview.html

"BS (Barry Schwabsky) : I was also, from the film, very curious about your interest in music. It reminded me that I'd read somewhere that you played piano on one of Big Star's records. Is that true?

WE (William Eggleston) : On one song. Alex Chilton was singing and I was, the way I put it, playing around him. His singing was the musical equivalent of abstract painting and I was playing very clearly, not abstract music. I just heard that recording recently. I'd never sat and listened to it.

BS: What was the name of the song?

WE: "Nature Boy" -- Nat King Cole. A completely new version. It was a song I'd suggested to him, for sole reason that I used to listen to an old, old record of it and knew I could play it well enough. I don't think I was part of any of the other tracks. The album was called Radio City and the cover had one of my pictures on it, The Red Ceiling"

Reading this blew my mind !!

I never would have known that "Nature Boy" was a "Radio City" -era out-take, but I can now sort of see how LX may have thought about replacing "Morpha Too" with another piano piece.

So I guess John Fry was correct when he stated that there were only 18 completed tracks for the THIRD/SISTER LOVERS album in that 1975 interview I linked to earlier.

 

'Bout to be gone for a week, but I DO think all the Sister Lovers outtakes are out.

Lots of Sherbert outtakes, tho. I think the masters on that literally fell apart after Dickinson did the last CD remaster for it.

Remaining outtakes are probably cassette only at this point.

See ya'll down the road folks.

 

Thanks again for sharing so much info Kent!

 

Kent or anyone who knows of such things... I just found my tape of Ardent Studio demos that circulated around in the 80s I guess. Anyway there a bunch of Van Duren songs on it but I don't recognize some of them. Obviously there's the early version of "Andy, Please" and "Love that I Love" but otherwise I'm at a loss since I only own Idiot Optimism. Any one?

 

Howdy Mafru2,

I finally got hold my my Ardent Artifacts boot and the Van Duren/Jody Stephens/Terry Manning tracks are as follows ;

The Love that I Love (Van Duren / Jody Stephens)
Andy, please (Van Duren / Jody Stephens)
So glad to see You (Van Duren / Jody Stephens) ??
For You (Jody Stephens)
Grow Yourself up
Growing Boy with feathers (Bootleggers name)
Headstart for Happiness (Bootleggers name)
Long, Long Road (Bootleggers name)

The additional Andrew Loog Oldham Ardent demos includes ; Oh, Babe / New Years Eve / Guaranteed (ft. ALO).

Could be a good idea though - to just ask Van Duren about the 1975-1976 Ardent demos. There could be quite a few more tracks from the Ardent sessions than the few that has been featured on bootlegs...

 

I did ask him as I had ordered a CD from him. He doesn't seem all that interested in the Ardent things but he pointed me to a blog that has the names. The demos are quite good. In some cases I like them better than the released versions. Unfortunately my tape is quite a few gens removed so its not great. Here's Van's response:

"I don't own the rights to the '75 demos--Ardent does. But go to www.myspace.com/indiediam for a great blog about that subject. It will help you identify most of the songs."

EDIT: I just found a CD copy of the demos a friend gave me (must be Ardent Artifacts) and its pretty hissy as well.

 

Any word on the Van Duren release?

 

Kent may get some inside scoop but Van did not know of a date and I recently checked Amazon. Nothing yet... not that it would appear on Amazon first.

 

Not a recent post I'm responding to here, but I just noticed it. Rob Jovanovic's book speaks of "Nature Boy" as a Sister Lovers recording, and quotes Jim Dickinson's comments on how he produced it -- Dickinson also mentions that he offered to provide a copy of the song to Rykodisc for the CD if they couldn't find the master.

Look at what William Eggleston says again. He doesn't just say the song was recorded for Radio City; he says the song was on Radio City. If he was wrong about that, his memory could easily be failing him in other respects.

 

I did pick up the following LP yesterday:

Big Star: The Third Album
1978 Aura Records Limited
Catalogue number: aul 703.
Matrix: AUL 703 A1 and B1. And also something that looks like “A Bilbo Bopla!”

I believe this is the original UK version on LP. Track list is as follows:

Kizza Me
You Can’t Have Me
Jesus Christ
Downs
Whole Lotta Shakin' Going On
Thank You Friends

O, Dana
Femme Fatale
Stroke It Noel
Holocaust
Nighttime
Kanga Roo

I have only heard this on CD before (Line,. Ryko and PVC) and I must say listening to this LP is a revelation. Gone is the brightness from the PVC, dullness from the Line and the digital glare from the Ryko. The fullness in the bottom end on this version is just fantastic. IMO; a great sounding LP.

 

Stumbled across this thread and read through it--fascinating!

Anyway, here's a pic of Lesa Aldridge (in red), since someone was asking about her upthread:



Full story.

 

The song 'For You' that appears among the Van Duren songs (listed above) - how do we know that Van and Jody recorded that? How do we know it's not a demo from Sister Lovers?

 

I have heard that the song 'Knoxville' or 'Instrumental' is actually called 'Out Of Gas Again' by Joe Hardy and features Andy Hummel and Alex Chilton. The mystery continues....

 

I read somewhere on the net that Lesa married Tommy Hoehn but I think they are divorced now - not sure.