Power Pop Legend Chris Bell’s Music Gets the Deluxe Treatment It Deserves
The works from one of the driving forces behind ’70s band Big Star are collected on three recent releases.
Originally published in The Huffington Post.
In interviews with writers and filmmakers about his brother, the late musician Chris Bell, David Bell is often asked why he spent his time hanging out with his aforementioned younger sibling during their adult lives. It’s often the case that an older and more responsible person who would want to maintain some distance from an unconventional kid brother.
“For me, he was probably the most interesting person I knew growing up from a very early age,” David, who’s now in his early 70s, says of Chris. “He was always sort of the hippie that I wanted to be. I wasn’t courageous enough to be as outlandish as he could be. He had the wherewithal, he had the venue, he had the chops for doing it.”
Today Chris Bell is best known as the co-singer, co-guitarist, and co-songwriter for the legendary ’70s Memphis-based power pop group Big Star, whose story has taken on mythic proportions long after the group first broke up. Despite the critical acclaim its music received at the time, Big Star never achieved commercial success, which drove Bell to…
