I wanna be a Big Star.
Trouble is, no matter how good you are, it's still easier to remain relatively anonymous. Stardom has many considerations, and "good at what you do" is only a minor one.
Well, we at 3 Chords & the Truth always can dream, can't we?Take the late Alex Chilton, for example. Great talent. Had a couple of stellar groups -- the Box Tops and, later, Big Star.
Big Star broke new ground in rock. Big Star turned out to be massively influential in shaping what rock music would become -- if you've heard REM, or Wilco, or even the Bangles, you've heard bits of Big Star.
Back in the 1970s, though, Chilton and the other members of Big Star weren't. Big stars, that is.
AND NOW poor Alex Chilton is dead of an apparent heart attack at 59 -- a hero to musicians and serious music fans, and a big "Huh?" to the world. Maybe stardom isn't all it's cracked up to be.
Maybe, when you get right down to it, the theme of this week's episode of 3 Chords & the Truth is the basic unfairness of art, which is just mirroring life.
Still, we're giving Chilton -- and the Box Tops, and Big Star -- their due on the Big Show, even if proper "props" rarely were forthcoming from the music industry . . . or the American consumer. Because in our heart, 3 Chords & the Truth is a national music and media powerhouse unfortunately confined to a little studio in Omaha, by God, Nebraska.
We can sympathize, as it were.
And I'll bet you can, too.
It's 3 Chords & the Truth, y'all. Be there. Aloha.
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