A Man Called Destruction: The Life and Music of Alex Chilton, from Box Tops to Big Star to Backdoor Man

Alex Chilton is one of the great cult artists of the rock pantheon. An international star at 16 as the singer of the worldwide hit "The Letter," with his band the Box Tops, and later a member of the critically acclaimed 1970s group Big Star, Chilton owns a legacy that spans five decades and multiple musical genres. His influence waxed in the Eighties through the likes of R.E.M. guitarist Peter Buck and The Replacements (the band even titled a song "Alex Chilton") and the rise of indie pop. George-Warren (editorial director, Rolling Stone Press; The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll) chronicles Chilton's early stardom, tumultuous years with Big Star, seminal influence on the indie rock scene, and subsequent emergence as a solo artist. Although there have been several books written about Big Star, including Rob Jovanovich's Big Star: The Short Life, Painful Death, and Unexpected Resurrection of the Kings of Power Pop and his more recent Big Star: The Story of Rock's Forgotten Band, this is the first book-length biography of Chilton.