A Man Called Destruction: The Life and Music of Alex Chilton, From Box Tops to Big Star to Backdoor Man by Holly George-Warren Page B

the Box Tops were finding their way as performers, learning from pros like the Beach Boys, who’d taken the young group under their wing. Brian Wilson, a big fan of “The Letter” and Alex’s vocal style, had stopped touring three years earlier, but Dennis and Carl Wilson, as well as Al Jardine, befriended the sixteen-year-old fledgling pop star. “The Beach Boys liked us, partly because we were shitty enough that we didn’t blow them off the stage,” Alex said, adding proudly, “and also because I think Brian had been caught by the record of ‘The Letter’ and turned the rest of ’em on to it.”
    By late October the Box Tops were bound for New York to promote their debut album, issued by Mala/Bell. The front cover featured a blurry, sunlit photo of the band wearing their Lansky’s duds, with Alex’s face nearly impossible to discern. Penn and Uttal titled the LP
The Letter/Neon Rainbow
(the latter song was their sophomore single, about to be issued), which featured a dozen tracks selected by Dan Penn. “Neon Rainbow,” also written by Wayne Carson, was a soft ballad, with keyboards and acoustic guitar prominent in the mix. Alex later referred to the song as the band’s psychedelic number, due more to its obtuse lyrics than its sonics.
    Also on the LP was the single’s flip side, “Everything I Am,” a gospel-tinged ballad written by Penn and Oldham. Spooner’s piano carries the song, and Alex contributed an almost reverential vocal, reminiscent in style to Elvis Presley’s approach to hymns. Three of the album’s numbers were covers of previous hits: Procol Harum’s “Whiter Shade of Pale,” James and Bobby Purify’s “I’m Your Puppet,” and—continuing the transportation theme—Dionne Warwick’s“Trains and Boats and Planes,” a Bacharach-David song. Alex confidently pulled off his interpretations of each, particularly on “Pale” and “Puppet.”
    Only a few of the album’s songs were added to the Box Tops’ live set list, since “the recordings were so manipulated by that American Studios production [via strings and horns] that it was difficult to reproduce in a live situation,” according to Alex. An exception was the bluesy “She Knows How” (another Carson song).
“She knows how to kiss me like I wanna be kissed . . . / when it comes to lovin’, she knows how,”
Alex emoted, no doubt thinking of Kokie, Suzi, and his increasing number of on-the-road conquests. Bobby Womack, who played guitar on some of the tracks, contributed two numbers: the soulful “People Make the World” and guitar-and-B-3 organ-fueled “Gonna Find Somebody,” another lovelorn number.
    Though Alex appreciated the talents of the Memphis Boys and was thrilled to have an album out, he was embarrassed about the overdubs, particularly a few hokey sound effects, as well as some of Dan’s song choices and the fact that his fellow Box Tops barely played on the LP. “I didn’t go for that material that related more to middle age than teenage,” he said twenty years after the debut’s release. “And since they kicked our little band out of the studio and brought in all the studio players, I was pretty unhappy with what was going on. But I was so young I really wasn’t in any position to complain at that time.”
    Those thoughts weren’t on his mind, though, when the band traveled to New York to promote the album. Among several TV appearances, the most outrageous was a special Halloween edition of
Disc-O-Teen
, on Newark’s Channel 47. It was hosted by John Zacherle, whose TV persona, “Zacherley,” a debonair vampire from Transylvania, had become a sensation when he commandeered Philadelphia’s late-night
Chiller Theater
, showing B horror flicks. On the super-low-budget
Disc-O-Teen
, black and white teenagers disguised as hobos, witches, and cowpokes danced to “The Letter” while the band—each looking about fourteen years old—mugged for the camera. Afterward, the Tops discovered that