Third/Sister Lovers
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Third, also known as Sister Lovers and Beale Street Green, is a rock album recorded by Memphis power pop group Big Star in 1974. The album was produced by Jim Dickinson.
After the first two Big Star albums, 1972's #1 Record and 1974's Radio City, failed to achieve commercial success, Alex Chilton went back into Ardent Studios in late 1974 to make a series of recordings. The resulting album, which included guitar work by Steve Cropper (on a cover of Lou Reed's "Femme Fatale), as well as drumming by Jody Stephens, was deemed too uncommercial for release at the time, and only saw the light of day in 1978. Since then, other tracks from the sessions, including covers of songs by Jerry Lee Lewis and the Kinks, have been reissued on various versions of the album, which seems to have been left uncompleted.
Third takes the original Big Star sound and abstracts it, with synthesizers, strings and saxophones emerging from the mix. The album deals with bitterness, loneliness and emotional devastation, but does so in a way that retains some elements of pop music, as on "Thank You Friends," which features female backing vocals reminiscent of those found on Elvis Presley recordings of the late '60s. "Kanga Roo" and "Holocaust" have often been compared to some of the raw recordings of Yoko Ono and John Lennon. "You Can't Have Me" is akin to a deconstructed song by the Who, and the halting ballad "Dream Lover" contains the famous line about "Beale Street green." Although many critics regard Radio City as the definitive Big Star album, Third is perhaps the most innovative album the group ever recorded, and influenced many subsequent bands, including Primal Scream and His Name Is Alive. In addition, the album contains what are arguably Alex Chilton's finest vocal performances.
It was listed in David Keenan's "The Best Albums Ever...Honest by the Scottish newspaper The Sunday Herald.
PERSONNEL:
- Alex Chilton--Vocals, Guitars, Keyboards
- Jody Stephens--Drums, Vocals
- Lesa Aldredge--Vocals
- Lee Baker--Guitar
- Jim Dickinson--Bass, Drums, Mellotron
- Steve Cropper--Guitar
- Richard Rosebrough--Drums
- William Murphey--Bass
- Tarp Tarrant--Drums
- Jimmy Stephens--Bass
- Tommy Cathey--Bass
- Tommy McClure--Bass
- Carl Marsh--Reeds, Woodwinds, Synthesizer, String Arrangements