Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me Page #6

for how disappointed

they were in the lack

of response that they got.

It was sort of chaotic

at Ardent

and the future

was all unknown.

It was sort of in limbo.

We had a rehearsal

set up there.

Jody and I arrived at 2:00

and we waited and waited

and about 5:
30

Alex comes sauntering in

and he says "Well, here I am,

but I don't have my guitar.

What do you want to do?"

So, you know,

that would be a typical day.

And then after a while

of this sort of thing

going on Alex said to me,

"My attitude about music is

I could take it or leave it. "

I met Chris in '75.

I was working in CBS Records.

He was over

with his brother David,

looking for a deal

and there was a guy called

John Tobler,

who was our head of press there

at the time

and I was like

the in-house photographer.

There was rumor

that, you know,

in working with Geoff Emerick

and if he could show

anything that he'd done

with Big Star

it would be amazing.

And we were looking

forward to it.

He was very

kind of intense, shy.

Fortunately

he had David with him,

so he could be the mouthpiece

and talk

all that business nonsense.

John would put

David in contact

with various people

in various record companies.

Unfortunately, sadly,

as we know that he never

got a deal for it.

He was drinking a lot,

an awful lot.

Steadily it became kind of more

and more depressing.

And, you know, I was

taking him here and there

and wherever

to show him something

and maybe get... you know,

show him a good time.

I can always

get inspired by environment.

When I was taking pictures

and especially of him,

because I've always

had a dramatic side,

was quite aware

that difficult times

can be translated

into great photography,

great music.

And when he saw that picture,

we talked about using it

possibly for an album cover.

I purposely cut him off

just below the knees

and with the background

that we had,

make him look like he was kind

of floating in the ether.

When we walked

this road with Bob Dylan,

he said "Jim, a man could do

a lot of thinking here. "

And Jim said,

"Bob, I'm thinking

all the time. "

10 years before

he ever played on

"Time Out Of Mind"

with Bob Dylan,

he told me

that we had to get out

of the big fancy house

we lived in,

what he called

"suburban squalor,"

and get to Mississippi

and move in trailers,

because otherwise Bob Dylan

would get the wrong message.

The idea of living in trailers,

I'd never considered that,

but it worked out fantastic.

It was our second honeymoon.

Jim wasn't interested in things

that were real

put together or polished or...

He was more interested

in the forces of nature.

Here's a good symbol

of Jim's philosophy of art.

It's said that the song

"Dock of the Bay"

was written on this piano

by Otis Redding.

We turned it into

what is known as yard art,

a magnificently manufactured

musical instrument

subject to the forces

of nature.

There's one thing

I learned from Jim

is that everything is important.

You might say that is

the most cluttered room

I ever saw,

but it's his ambience

and it's his sonic genius

that's in here.

Jim's background was theater

and he learned early on

that a play comes together

and very intense

and real friendships

and enemies

are formed that basically

only last the life of the play.

He learned about

how to be part of a cast,

a cast of characters.

You made a point earlier

that Memphis music is what it is

because it's done

differently than anywhere else.

People that have made

Memphis music in the past

wouldn't even have

the opportunity

to make music

other places,

from Elvis... from before

Elvis to Robert Johnson.

What happened

in Memphis in those years,

so much had fallen apart,

yet this was coming

together in a way

that nobody could predict

or understand

what the outcome

could possibly be.

It was full of energy,

creativeness and always,

always trying to push

the envelope

and "Stranded in Canton,"

we definitely did.

That was our scene.

I was stranded in Canton.

Revolution!

I used to go to shows

and see Jim Dickinson.

I saw Big Star playing.

Alex, he and Lesa,

introduced me to a social set

where there were

a lot of disconnected,

messed-up people.

I felt right at home.

I said,

"I found my social set. "

There was some sort of thing

that happened

with this group of people,

especially around

Bill Eggleston, the artist.

The standard artistic equation

for that scene was

horror equals beauty,

beauty equals horror.

If say something felt terrible,

if something

sounded out of tune,

if say something was just wrong,

then somehow

that could become beauty.

Alex, Jim,

and Bill Eggleston,

all... for me, that's all

the same body of work.

For me it's just

visual and musical.

And Bill thinks of himself

as a musician

as much as he thinks of himself

as a photographer.

Jim was a man

who respected tradition.

He talked about

knowing truly great men.

These are the truly great men

who helped him

make the music of the spheres.

This was his shrine.

The boys and I put him

front and center.

Jim always said

that the part of the recordings

that he claimed were the space

between the notes.

That's where he wrote

his signature.

And I think

of all his recordings,

he succeeded in the space

between the notes most

with "Big Star Third. "

I worked with these

other legendary producers

and saw that the people

who were the heaviest,

were,

in fact, doing the least.

But that's the way

you pull it out.

It's not your record.

It's their record.

The producer's name goes

at the bottom of the back

in the smallest typeface

known to man.

And that's the way

it should be.

We all had keys to the studio

at that point.

Alex would come into the studio

in the middle of the night

with Lesa,

his girlfriend

and the muse of the record,

whose importance

cannot be overstated.

I come in one morning

and he's got this little evil

grin on his face

and he said, "Well,

Lesa and I cut

something last night

I want you to hear. "

"Okay," I said.

So he plays me

"Like A Kangaroo"

which is just 12 string,

acoustic 12 string

and vocal.

I said "Yeah, Alex,

what do you hear on that?"

And he says, again

with the evil grin he says,

"Well, why don't you produce it,

Mr. Producer?"

# I next saw you

# You was at the party

But you could hear

how he grew up out of the chaos.

That's the space

that I don't think anybody

had given him before.

# I came against

A lot of different things about

how Alex thought about music

were changed

by his influence from Jim.

Alex would be

showing someone a song,

for instance,

showing how the guitar went,

maybe needling

around a little bit,

and then

they hear Dickinson say

"You know

we were recording.

That's it, we got it. "

And they'd say, "What?

You know,

you were recording that?"

And he'd say

"Yeah, and it was great, great,

I wouldn't change a thing. "

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