A Man Called Destruction: The Life and Music of Alex Chilton, From Box Tops to Big Star to Backdoor Man (47 page)

Abbreviations: Alex Chilton [AC]; Author [HGW].

For all interview dates and for publication information where not provided, see Sources.

Prologue

“Somewhere along the line”
:
Epic Soundtracks, “Alex Chilton.”
What a Nice Way to Turn Seventeen.

“He defies categorization”
:
Chuck Prophet, written remembrance of AC.

“If one measure”
:
Rob Hoerburger, “Southern Accents,”
New York Times Magazine
.

“Chilton wasn’t just a genius”
:
Ann Powers, “Alex Chilton, My Own Music Teacher,”
Los Angeles Times
.

“always riveting and real”
:
Joe Sasfy, “Alex Chilton,”
Washington Post
.

“Alex’s process”
:
Tav Falco in
Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me
.

“Thelonious Monk”
:
Chuck Prophet, written remembrance of AC.

“All my career”
:
Parke Puterbaugh interview with AC, 1993.

Chapter 1: The Chiltons of Virginia and Mississippi

Alex proudly corrected one journalist
:
Bruce Eaton interview with AC.

Alex cut off communication
:
HGW interview with Bruce Eaton.

wanted his gravestone
:
Bernard Kugel interview with AC.

In 1660 another John Chilton
:
Mary Louise (Tarr) Chilton,
A Genealogical History of the Chilton Family.

Thomas Chilton
:
John Frederick Dorman, “The Chilton Families of Virginia and Maryland,”
Virginia Genealogist;
Stella Pickett Handy,
Colonial Families of the Southern States of America: A history and genealogy of colonial families who settled in the colonies prior to the revolution.

Thomas, Charles, and John served
:
Many of John Chilton’s letters and diaries now reside at the Virginia Historical Society. They also form the basis of a book,
They Behaved Like Soldiers: Captain John Chilton and the Third Virginia Regiment 1775–1778
, by Michael Cecere (Berwyn Heights, MD: Heritage Books, 2004).

“That’s how my branch”
:
Bruce Eaton,
Radio City
.

John wrote a history
:
ibid.

wrote his Aunt Dory
:
“Norton, Chilton, and Dameron Family Papers, 1760–1926, 1995,”
Records of ante-bellum Southern plantations from the Revolution through the Civil War.
Letters between Sarah Norton and other family members reside in the Southern Folklife Collection of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Wilson Library.

known to deride Confederate heroes
:
Correspondence from AC to Rick Clark, July 30, 1999.

“The South sucks!”
:
“Alex Chilton: Pop’s Reluctant Hero.”
Tasty World.

“Things go on much as usual”
:
“Norton, Chilton, and Dameron Family Papers.”

a picnic was held in a grove
:
Charles Hillman Brought, “The Clinton Riot,”
Bucks County Gazette
(Bristol, PA), September 9, 1875.

At a subsequent inquiry
:
ibid.

“He died in the arms”
:
“Norton, Chilton, and Dameron Family Papers”; Eaton interview with AC.

Harrison Chilton lost everything
:
Eaton,
Radio City
.

“We talked a lot about books”
:
HGW interview with Dan Tyler.

“[Magruder] was an interesting guy”
:
Kris Grant, “Jack Chilton: Nifty Nineties,”
Coronado Lifestyle
.

no one ever called her that
:
HGW interview with Cecelia Chilton.

“My father was . . . a musician”
:
Eaton,
Radio City
.

“I learned later”
:
ibid.

“I have traced each branch”
:
Mrs. William E. Chilton, “The Chiltons of Virginia,”
William and Mary College Quarterly Historical Magazine
15 (1907).

Chapter 2: Memphis

“I remember my dad”
:
HGW interview with Adele Brown Tyler.

supply ship in the Mediterranean
:
HGW interview with Cecelia Chilton.

The gifted Lindamood
:
Peter Lindamood, “Italian Painting Today,”
Harper’s Bazaar
, February 1946, and “I Cover the Cover,”
View
, March 1945 (accessed via the Internet); Rhonda Roland Shearer and Thomas Girst, “From Blues to Haikus: An Interview with Charles Henri Ford,”
Tout-Fait
1, no. 2 (May 2000), http://www.toutfait.com/issues/issue_2/Interviews/ford.html.

“elegant Auntie type”
:
Correspondence from Tennessee Williams to Frank Merlo, May 9, 1952, in Albert J. Devlin and Nancy M. Tischler, eds.,
The Selected Letters of Tennessee Williams, vol. 2: 1945–1957
(New York: New Directions, 2004).

“the town home for a lot of plantation-owner people”
:
Bruce Eaton interview with AC.

“veterans with families”
:
HGW interview with Cecelia Chilton.

“Alex was about two”
:
ibid.

“neighborhood friends was a neurosurgeon”
:
ibid.

“shy, introverted children”
:
HGW interview with Adele Brown Tyler.

“I remember Alex talking”
:
ibid.

“She didn’t join the PTA”
:
HGW interview with Cecelia Chilton.

“His name was Colonel Cray”
:
ibid.

Memphis public schools remained segregated
:
Sam Dillon, “Merger of Memphis and County School Districts Revives Race and Class Challenges,”
New York Times
, November 5, 2011.

“golden boy of the family”
:
HGW interview with Adele Brown Tyler.

“He was everything to me”
:
Eaton interview with AC.

“We were raised going to Sunday school”
:
HGW interview with Cecelia Chilton.

“That was a big thing in the family”
:
Eaton interview with AC.

“You can only imagine how traumatic”
:
HGW interview with Adele Brown Tyler.

“the death had a big effect”
:
HGW interview with Cecelia Chilton.

“I was very much into Jesus”
:
ibid.

“I was off to college”
:
ibid.

Chapter 3: Midtown

“pretty wild neighborhood”
:
Epic Soundtracks, “Alex Chilton,”
What a Nice Way to Turn Seventeen
.

“We joked”
:
HGW interview with Cecelia Chilton.

“Daddy started playing music again”
:
ibid.

“When I was ten”
:
Keith Spera, “Alex Chilton,”
Offbeat
, May 1, 1995.

“summer get-togethers for musician friends”
:
HGW interview with Adele Brown Tyler.

“he kind of raised himself”
:
ibid.

“I became a fan”
:
Robert Gordon,
It Came from Memphis.

“He’d come home from work”
:
Bruce Eaton interview with AC.

“We didn’t have a place to stay”
:
HGW interview with Rosa Eggleston.

“Sidney and Mary Evelyn ‘were some of my closest friends’”
:
Gordon,
It Came from Memphis.

“Eggleston was a fixture”
:
Eaton interview with AC.

“When he told me that”
:
HGW e-mail interview with Louise Leffler.

“he was real eccentric and delightful”
:
HGW interview with Cecelia Chilton.

“He would just pontificate about various things”
:
HGW interview with Calvin Turley.

“By the time he showed up”
:
HGW interview with Adele Brown Tyler.

“There was lots of music in the house”
:
Eaton interview with AC.

“my father was the most unbigoted person”
:
HGW interview with Cecelia Chilton.

“Sidney was rooting for the Army”
:
HGW interview with Dale Tuttle.

“a gathering of mutual friends”
:
HGW interview with William Eggleston.

“Lee was a fun person”
:
HGW interview with Rosa Eggleston.

“Alex’s mother”
:
HGW interview with Adele Brown Tyler.

“They were laid-back parents”
:
HGW interview with Tuttle.

“There wasn’t a whole lot of structure”
:
HGW interview with Turley.

“I don’t remember a cooked meal”
:
HGW interview with Tuttle.

“I think Alex liked my family”
:
HGW interview with Adele Brown Tyler.

“We’d go over to Alex’s house”
:
HGW interview with Tuttle.

“I was given a copy”
:
Gordon,
It Came from Memphis
.

“When I got to be 11 or 12”
:
ibid.

“They’d be playing”
:
HGW interview with Tuttle.

“He was playing”
:
ibid.

“Though he was thin”
:
ibid.

“All the girls were standing”
:
HGW interview with Carole Ruleman Manning.

“nice Catholic girl”
:
HGW e-mail interview with Leffler.

“His legs were really highly developed”
:
HGW interview with Carole Ruleman Manning.

“Alex and I were prone”
:
HGW interview with Tuttle.

Chapter 4: Thirteen

“When the Beatles came along”
:
Cub Koda, “Alex Chilton: My Dinner with Alex,”
Goldmine
.

“There were maybe half a dozen high schools”
:
HGW interview with Russ Caccamisi.

“We’d usually walk to Pop Tunes”
:
HGW interview with Dale Tuttle.

“My musical taste and knowledge”
:
HGW interview with Paul Jobe.

“Duke Ellington and Count Basie fan”
:
Bruce Eaton interview with AC.

“When I was twelve or thirteen”
:
ibid.

“Mother would call upstairs”
:
HGW e-mail interview with Louise Leffler.

“It said, ‘Love and Kisses’
”
:
ibid.

“We’d sit on the couch”
:
ibid.

“There was quite the extravagant”
:
Eaton interview with AC.

“my brother was driving”
:
HGW interview with Carole Ruleman Manning.

“When you’re a young teenager”
:
HGW interview with Jobe.

“They had some really good music”
:
ibid.

“It all seemed really complex”
:
Koda, “My Dinner with Alex.”

“One of my dad’s musician buddies”
:
Bruce Eaton, interview with AC.

“Alex kinda took control”
:
HGW interview with Jobe.

“I really wasn’t getting anywhere”
:
Koda, “My Dinner with Alex.”

“He was a moody guy”
:
HGW interview with Jobe.