Big Star's Radio City (50th Anniversary)
White Eagle Hall Presents
This year marks the 50th anniversary of Radio City, the legendary sophomore from the highly influential Memphis band, Big Star. To celebrate, an all-star collective of musicians (led by the band’s sole surviving original member, Jody Stephens) will perform the entire album. Joining Stephens will be some of the band’s biggest fans, who have long been associated with Big Star-related projects, including Mike Mills (R.E.M.), Jon Auer (The Posies), Pat Sansone (Wilco), and Chris Stamey (The dB's).
Released in 1974, Radio City has long been a coveted classic, beloved by alt-rockers, pop fans, and everyone else in between. Influenced by the sounds of the British Invasion, yet strikingly original, Big Star’s debut combined guitar-fueled hooks, sweet harmonies, jangly pop, and wistful melancholia for a sound that was years ahead of its time. Today, in conjunction with the earlier No. 1 Record and the subsequent Third, it is considered to be a seminal title in the power pop canon – a genre that, for better or worse, wouldn’t truly take off until the end of the decade.
While Big Star (vocalist/guitarist/pianist Alex Chilton, vocalist/guitarist Chris Bell, bassist Andy Hummel, and drummer Jody Stephens) officially formed in 1971, #1 Record began to take shape several years earlier, when Chilton and Bell (both teenagers at the time) started writing together, finding inspiration from the John Lennon/Paul McCartney songwriting partnership. Bell left the band after that first release, and Alex, Jody, and Andy marshaled their forces as a trio to create Radio City. Working with Ardent Records’ founder and engineer John Fry, Chilton and Hummel laid down guitar, bass and keys tracks to match Stephens’s explosive, invigorated drumming, and the passion they put into the performances lifted the already masterful songwriting to a new level. Its many beloved songs, including “O My Soul,” “Way Out West,” and “Daisy Glaze,” were led by the astonishing pop perfection of “September Gurls,” later covered by the Bangles.
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