Crash Course, No. 15: Big Star and Misaligned Stars

From humble beginnings. Sort of. Somehow apt.

As a member of the musical tribe I fell in with, I came late to the Big Star party. A friend passed them on as one of scores of artists burned to CDs and passed on to me back in the old “ripping” days; I’d say he put 60 bands on there, most with multiple albums. He didn’t single out Big Star or any other band - not that it would have mattered because, me being me, I started at the top of the alphabet and methodically worked through it. Getting to the “Bs” didn't take long, obviously.

I did recognize the name, though. When another friend and his wife got married, they created wedding playlist CDs as a party favor and tucked all the way that bottom was Big Star’s “I’m in Love with a Girl,” a short little song I loved the second I heard it. That sharpened the anticipation of getting to them, but I was in love with Big Star by the time I got to “Thirteen” on #1 Record on the first listen.

Who They’re For: Fans of 70s rock, for one, but they have a barrier of entry or two - lightly pinched vocals, for one, but I also wonder how many people hear that damn-near signature guitar sound and think the songs all sound the same. But I’m going to borrow something to help explain them:

"Though the Fab Four are an audible influence on the albums, it’s generally more White Album–era Beatles being drawn upon than A Hard Day’s Night, along with such disparate elements as Led Zeppelin’s swaggering hard rock, Kinks leader Ray Davies’ brooding introspection, and the sweet soul music of Big Star’s Memphis hometown.”

It’s not necessarily complex music, but it runs from busy, full of layering, dueling melodies to songs so stripped down and simple that they almost walk around naked. The mood can turn on a dime within the same album, sometimes song to song. It’s dramatic lyrically, but on a very personal, almost insular level. If it speaks to you, it speaks loudly.

One Hit No More, No. 54: Jean Knight, "Mr. Big Stuff" and the Bakery

Which may or may not contain the bakery...

The Hit
It’s a funky, strutting, table-turner of a number, “Mr. Big Stuff,” fun, satisfying and triumphant all at once. The backing vocals give it the feel of a pile-on, a dude living life at several pegs too high getting dragged back down to Earth by a woman who won't even start putting up with his shit - and in front of all her friends to boot. I like how the different sounds and instruments fit together in the song. The bass, the guitar, even the punchy horn parts, all pretty simple and short on their own, each of them almost the beginning of a thought, a bunch of “oh, this is just something I’m working on,” laced together in a fun little piece of pop. On the one hand, isn't that most of pop music? On the other, this one's basic in the best way.

Fun detail: “Mr. Big Stuff” started as a ballad…no, I can’t hear what that would have sounded like either. When the people who worked it up played her the demo, Jean Knight liked it but didn’t think it sounded quite right. In the words of the Louisiana Music Hall of Fame’s bio for Knight:

“She’d heard a tape of Mr. Big Stuff and she liked it, but it was a ballad and she wanted to liven it up. Joe Broussard, one of the co-writers of the song, told her to sing it the way she felt it. In the Malaco studios, she nailed the song on her second take.”

Knight had a smart ear, but a year would pass before the world learned about it. It wasn’t the first time she went back to her day job, nor would it be her last.

The Rest of the Story
New Orleans-born Jean Knight (born Jean Castile; she thought “Knight” would be easier to pronounce) rarely struggled to impress with her vocals. After hearing her sing at her cousin’s bar (“Laura’s Place”), several bands invited her to sing with them; people approached her about recording - and she did several times - but that’s where it ended more often than not.

In 1965, a producer named Huey Meaux trying to launch Barbara Lynn with “You’ll Lose a Good Thing,” either spotted or heard Knight. He picked her up and tried to shop a version of “Tain’t the Truth” (a cover of an Ernie K-Doe song), but couldn’t get the single to go anywhere outside the regional market. (She’d actually recorded at least once before, a demo/cover of Jackie Wilson’s “Stop Doggin’ Me Around,” which landed her a contract with the Jet Star/Tribe label…but, again, nothing she did broke out of the region.) With reality not lining up with her dreams, Knight hung up the microphone and picked up a job as a baker at Loyola University.