Search - Box Tops :: Letter

THIS IS A GREAT CD!!!

John D. Seneca | PLAQUEMINE, LOUISIANA | 09/14/2002

(5 out of 5 stars)

"IF YOU ARE A FAN OF THE BOX TOPS, THEN YOU WILL ENJOY THIS CD!! WHETHER YOU ARE FAMILIAR WITH THEIR MUSIC OR NOT, YOU SHOULD REALLY ENJOY THIS CD!!! I WAS ONLY FAMILIAR WITH THE SONG 'THE LETTER,' BUT THE OTHER SONGS WERE VERY GOOD TOO!!!!"

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J P Ryan | Waltham, Massachusetts United States | 08/15/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Rock 'n' roll cult hero /'eccentric' Alex Chilton got famous leading The Box Tops (1967 - 70), but, sadly, 'artistic credibility' eluded him until

the debut album by Big Star (1972 - 75). Big Star recorded for the obscure Ardent label out of Memphis, sounded like 1966 AND the future, and are among the few groups worthy of membership in any r & r Hall Of Fame that NEVER cracked the Billboard Top 200 LP chart (Television and, less surprisingly, Pere Ubu also missed, by the way). Yes even "White Light/White Heat" climbed to #199, and several Captain Beefheart albums spent weeks in the # 100 - 200 neighborhood. This has never seemed quite right to me. Heck back when he was a critic Jon Landau famously, portentiously, wrote "I have seen the future of Rock and Roll and his name is Bruce Springsteen..." (quoted from memory), and you must understand kids actually READ rock 'n' roll writing in 1974, and Landau's line helped heighten expectations for the long-awaited Born To Run" (1975), the album that made Bruce a superstar (to this day can't listen to it myself). So why couldn't Lenny Kaye, Creem, Robert Christgau, Rolling Stone, etc help Big Star become big stars? And yet, something worked, sort of. Big Star were not only lavishly, and deservedly, praised in tha' day, but since "Third" was issued 30 years ago (in Europe first, natch) we've had tribute albums and a stream of cover versions (recall wishing it was the original 'September Gurls' getting all that airplay?), a song about Big Star by the Replacements recorded when THAT band was still "punk" AND at their popular peak. Post "Alex Chilton" scores of younger bands emrged who have clearly been touched by the rare, raw sensibility evident in nearly every song Big Star recorded. Since the dawn of the CD era the group's albums have remained in print.

Strangely it was The Box Tops' very success - their string of hit singles - that led to their "pop" (when that word was derisive in rock circles)image, those exquisite singles leading to the band's "bubblegum" image. Other reasons why The Box Tops seemed uncool in 1968 include recording for the Bell label which had few if any album oriented rock artists on its roster - its other best known acts in 1970, the year Chilton threw in the towel, hoping to realize a solo career, were The Partridge Family, Tony Orlando & Dawn, and The 5th Dimension (and the 5th Dimension made some superb records too!). Albums now ruled, singles were for kids. The Box Tops reached # 1 with their first record, "The Letter" in the summer of 1967. It seemed like great records were coming out every week, and it was a period of furious change in the music industry. The best and brightest - Stones, Beatles, Otis, Hendrix, Sly, Airplane, on and on - were suddenly taking control of every aspect of their work, leaving A&R men and non-performing songwriters in the dust. Suddenly the classic formula that had 'artists' from Sinatra to Aretha interpreting songs written by songwriters selected by the producer was unhip, and one example of what had been the norm just a year before now seeming hopelessly dated. No more jacket-photos of the artist smiling or the band rollicking in a field or romping on the beach - it all signalled an earlier era, and when such images were still being used to present music it signalled disposible pop. By 1971 the likes of Led Zeppelin (and Pink Floyd, and...), who were no longer patronizing the masses by putting the group's name (in readable script) on the cover - why desecrate the Art? To have "Led Zeppelin" and "8 New Hits including Black Dog and Rock and Roll!" on the cover would have seemed crass to hip kids who never bought a Box Tops record 'til the '80s. Bell still offered liner notes by DJ's, and on their second album Raider Mark Lindsay...

The Box Tops' music was a seamless combination of soul, pop, blues, country, and rock 'n' roll all woven together in settings that range from understated to sophisticated and baroque. They sound fantastic, at their best way less dated than much of the hipper favorites from the same era. The Box Tops' best albums today feel more cohesive than say, the Rascals', to name a group with whom they shared much in common. Chilton dominates with his astonishing vocals, so complex and emotionally evocative. He reliably sings with soul and intelligence except on the very rare piece of material he obviously did not want to record - in those cases (maybe one track per album), he deepens his voice and oversings to compensate for his lack of interest. But The Box Tops' music was seamlessly crafted by Dan Penn, and beginning in late 1968 a less rigid Chips Moman, at American Studios in Memphis. Alex Chilton would never be allowed to contibute more than three original songs per album. Yet nearly every song on the band's four albums is a gem, and if it's true the Box Tops barely play on the first, Penn utilized the Memphis masters who also appear on classic albums by Aretha, Elvis, Wilson Pickett, Dusty Springfield, Herbie Mann, and so many others. Chilton was 16 on the group's 1967 debut, and I'll never understand how at that age he could sing "A Whiter Shade Of Pale", AND make it his own. The vocals are nuanced, intelligent, and often understated at their best. Chilton's reading of Procal Harum's classic is more intimate than Gary Brooker's original, and easily its equal. And note the great Bobby Womack's funky guitar playing. Womack provides great songs too, and 'People Make The World' (from the debut) is a classic, timeless and true, sung with subtlety and true soul.

This comp offers 10 songs totalling roughly 28 minutes - forget it!. Instead check out Arista's 1997 18-song "best Of" or the four original studio albums, "The Letter/Neon Rainbow" (1967), "Cry Like A Baby" (1968), "Nonstop" (1968), and "Dimensions" (1969), together a remarkably consistent body of work, reissued by the Sundazed label in 2001. Each Sundazed title is meticulously remastered, attractively packaged to include original graphics, plus notes and interviews with the band, original label reproductions, etc. The Sundazed editions are also expanded to include some terrific non-album singles and unreleased songs, as well as single mixes of hits where relevent. Some of the very best Box Tops material never made it to the original albums, like "Turn On A Dream', 'You Keep Tightening Up', 'Come On Honey', 'Georgia Farm Boy', 'King's Row' and more. With such beautiful editions available for a couple extra bucks, this starved little sampler can certainly be ignored...."