[luvie]

MY ARTIST OF THE WEEK......

PAUL HARDCASTLE~Constellation Of Dreams

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[Publius]

Back when Alex Chilton died, “Drumbo” did a fine retrospective of Chilton’s work with the Box Tops, Big Star and his later solo work. Chilton had an amazing gift: he was a teenage boy who could sing like an old, grizzled, black blues singer. But he was a pigheaded fool and had a gift for angering everybody he worked with, including his fans.

I covered Chilton a bit when I did the Fathers of Hot Country, the songwriters who worked with producer Chips Moman. Chilton could have been the first Hot Country sensation, but his folly led Moman to approach Tom Parker, and it was Moman’s work in 1968 that brought Elvis Presley’ career back to life.

This song wasn’t written by any of the Fathers of Hot Country, those songwriters who gathered at Wally’s Nightclub in Nashville for the cheap beer, each one fantasizing about how he would spend his money when his song became a hit. This song came from producer Dan Penn and Spooner Oldham, two men who worked with Moman for a time. Although the Box Tops were classified as “blue-eyed soul”, if you listen to the production, it sounds a lot like early Hot Country. There are times when I think of this song as the first Hot Country hit. It came in at #6 this week.

The Box Tops: “Cry Like a Baby”