RADIO CITY

by Bruce Eaton (33 1/3 series)

This fascinating book tells the story of Big Star's influential Radio City. For the first time, band members Alex Chilton, Andy Hummel, and Jody Stephens, plus Ardent Records founder and engineer, John Fry shed light on the creation. Steering clear of ossified Big Star mythology, author Bruce Eaton weaves a compelling narrative through in-depth interviews and insights gathered through firsthand experience with the band's reclusive leader.

Excerpt:

Radio City captures the sound of those illusionary moments on the beach. It's as if all of the music coming out of all the little transistor radio speakers -- Beatles, Stones, Byrds, Beach Boys, Sam & Dave, Fifth Dimension, Lovin' Spoonful, Question Mark & the Mysterians, Supremes, Young Rascals, Sonny and Cher, Four Tops, Sam the Sham, Napolean The XIV -- had been beamed into outer space to some distant planet and then transformed by a band of musical alchemists into something both fresh and yet familiar and sent back to Earth by a wizard of sound. In a very real sense though, that's exactly what happened. Even on first listen, Radio City sounded like pure magic.