Alex Chilton
fronted
the Box Tops
but he never led them. He was a hired hand, picked for his preternaturally soulful voice but, like any red-blooded American teen, he soon bristled against the constraints on his freedom.
Chips Moman
and
Dan Penn
masterminded
, rarely letting
Chilton
record his own material, so he did what any rebellious adolescent would do: he sneaked around, cutting material at the fledging Ardent Studios without the knowledge of American Studios, who owned the rights to
's recordings. These contractual issues meant that the recordings
Alex
made at
Ardent
in 1969 with
Terry Manning
were still called "1970" when
released them on CD in 1996 -- it was the year
was released from his American contract -- but this tremendous 2012 reissue adds a more poetic title in
Free Again
. It's a title that accurately reflects
's frame of mind: he was breaking free of the constraints of
, finding his voice as a songwriter and musician, leaving behind the strict blue-eyed soul of his first band without quite ditching soul. He hasn't left behind the light, Baroque psychedelia that marked some of the latter-day
Box Tops
LPs, either -- there's a distinctly British undercurrent to the sweeter pop tunes here -- but there are also hints of country and loose-limbed, dirty rock & roll, particularly in a wildly inventive cover of "Jumpin' Jack Flash" that slows down the groove and turns
Keith Richards
' riff inside out. In that sense, the music on
is just as much a bridge between
Big Star
-- something that's quite clear on the more delicate moments here -- as it is an indication of what he would do after
. Much of this points the way toward the willful, ornery vibe of
Like Flies on Sherbert
, or the casual R&B crooner of the '80s and beyond, but in 1969,
has yet to prize contrariness over craft: he is still writing with passion and, with
Manning
and the
renegades figuring out just what they could do in the studio, this crackles with invention and spirit. Sure, it's messy, but
always was -- it's also some of his richest and best music, and it's never sounded better than it does on
Free Again: The 1970 Sessions
. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine