Gathering up Box tops

Sunday News
Published: May 21, 2006
by JOHN DUFFY, Correspondent

Not many of us can play in a Grammy-nominated band with a handful of perennial radio favorites to its credit, let alone do so as a sideline to our day jobs. But half of the members of 1960s hit-makers the Box Tops do just that: balance family life and career with life as a part-time oldies superstar. It's a lucky combination that not every oldies or classic rock act still sluggin' it out on the road can boast.

But with a couple of hit singles still in high rotation and a renewed interest in '60s garage bands among younger fans, the demand is there to be satisfied. The Box Tops will share the stage with the Shadows of Knight at Toyota Arena West in York on May 28 . Formed in Memphis in 1965, the band featured a 17-year-old Alex Chilton, whose voice sounded like he had been gargling with gravel. Bill Cunningham played bass; Gary Talley, guitar (the oldest at 19); Danny Smythe, drums; and John Evans, keyboards.

Their 1967 hit single "The Letter" topped Billboard's pop charts for four weeks in the fall of that year, keeping Bobby Gentry's "Ode to Billy Joe" and The Association's "Never My Love" out of the top spot. It was even nominated for a Grammy. "Cry Like a Baby" followed the next year amidst nearly a dozen other singles and a handful of albums, most of which have received the deluxe remaster treatment on compact disc in the last half- decade.

Not bad for a group that by Talley's own recollection had no distinctive sound or direction when it formed. "We were just kids in a band who sounded like whatever group were we trying to sound like: the Rascals, Beach Boys, Beatles ... Two of us were still in high school," he said during telephone interviews with the band. "We never had any creative control. Really, the only thing we had that was distinctive was Alex's voice." With that voice as their trump card, the band members knew that working with seasoned producer Dan Penn was a deal they wanted to strike. Talley called his production "brilliant."

By the time the band had its second million-selling single, Smythe left the group, returning to college to keep a draft deferment. "I was about two to three weeks away from being inducted," Smythe said. Evans left to pursue higher education as well, followed by Cunningham in 1969. Soon enough, the Box Tops ceased to be a true band, with Chilton and replacement members often being supplanted in the studio by session musicians. Chilton and Talley played their last show in February 1970.

"We got home from a show - I can't remember where it was - and just decided we didn't want to go on the road anymore," Talley said. Both he and Chilton had begun writing their own songs and itched to move forward. "For 30 years or so, most of us didn't see each other," Smythe said. But surprisingly, when the group got back together in 1997, the chemistry was still there. The reunion produced the album "Tear Off!"

"We just jelled immediately," said Smythe, who had put down his drumsticks to forge a career in commercial design. At the time, his hits were with such labels as Franceso Rinaldi, Ocean Spray and Miracle-Gro. Cunningham had in the interim studied classical music and landed a gig playing in the White House for four years straddling the Ford and Carter administrations. He went on to study business and foreign relations and currently is an international trade negotiator for the federal government. Talley stayed active as a musician and today works as a session guitar player and songwriter in Nashville and plays a variety of musical styles as a backup musician.

Talley's session work has found him backing everyone from Edwin McCain and Billy Preston to Willie Nelson and Tammy Wynette. "Full time, all the time," he said of his music career. He also teaches guitar and records instructional videos. "There are tons and tons of good players in this town, and getting steady studio work is hard." So he welcomes the occasional Box Tops show. Chilton has had the most impact on the music industry since quitting the band in 1970. His post-Box Tops group Big Star had considerably less commercial success but has had considerably more long-term influence on generations of musicians including the Replacements, R.E.M., dB's, Teenage Fanclub, the Posies, Soul Asylum and many others.

Consequently, Chilton, who has released a steady stream of curious, sometimes brilliant solo albums, often turns away from publicity. His bandmates understand his reluctance. They all got to lead normal lives, while Chilton has been deified for decades by just about every punk and indie rocker this side of Minneapolis. "And it's not some kind of prima donna thing," Cunningham said. "In fact, if anything, it's the opposite. He just can't be bothered by it."

Last fall, when Hurricane Katrina struck Chilton's hometown of New Orleans, friends and fans grew concerned when he was listed as missing. He had simply lent his car to a friend to get some people out of town, boarded up his house and waited it out in the French Quarter. Even Cunningham has trouble keeping track of Chilton's whereabouts. "He's been playing a lot in Europe, but I think he's on his way to Atlanta right now." That may seem a cavalier way to run a band, but since the group only agrees to about a dozen gigs a year, it's more like a jam among old friends than anything else. Everyone just shows up. And since they can choose their gigs judiciously, it's a lot better than it was in the '60s, Smythe said.

With the band members living separate lives in Nashville, Chicago, Washington, D.C, and New Orleans, they don't even meet to rehearse. "We know the songs cold," Smythe said. "The gear is there, and we just walk onstage and play. I think that helps keep it exciting. We don't even get tired."