Lesa Aldridge on Her Barbarian Records 45
The Klitz (circa ‘79), left to right: Gail Elise Clifton, Lesa Aldridge, Amy Gassner and Marcia Clifton. Photo by Kay King.
Lesa Aldridge (Big Star’s Third, the Klitz) was kind enough to answer a few questions about her wonderful and very rare solo EP on Barbarian Records (1980). The rest of her interview will appear in a Klitz oral history I’m preparing.
Interview by Ryan Leach
Lesa Aldridge: I’m delighted that you really love my single! Yes, Jim Blake of Barbarian Records released the 45rpm that summer of 1980 before I left Memphis to live with my mother and brothers outside of Washington, DC, in Glen Echo, Maryland. They had returned from several years abroad in Europe and Thailand (the latter of which inspired Alex’s song "Bangkok").
"Till the End of the Day" was indeed a Big Star recording for Third. Alex woke me up at ten o’clock one morning, took me by the hand, and escorted me to Ardent. He confided, “I’m not happy enough to sing this song.” It was just the two of us. I sang; he engineered. Later, Alex told me that John Fry liked my vocals so much that he personally mixed “Till the End of the Day.”
The second song on the single happened somewhat serendipitously. Jim Blake had assembled his roster of artists (of which I was one) for a group recording session at Ardent. It was a long night. Somewhere around three o’clock in the morning, the population of participants had dwindled to Jim Blake, Jim Dickinson, Alex Chilton, and me. I hadn’t recorded yet. Clearly, I wasn’t going home until I’d had my turn! Dickinson offered to play drums. Alex and I had already worked up the two songs we wound up recording in the wee hours of that session—"The Story of my Life" and "Afterhours" (Lou Reed). And so we cut those two songs, live and raw.
Dickinson’s philosophy of musical brilliance was built upon the idea that mistakes were the very thing that made music original and beautiful and exceptional and worthy. The worst words you could hear from Jim were too rehearsed.
The upshot of the Ardent session was that Robert Gordon included "The Story of my Life" in It Came from Memphis. The single made its debut. Blake saved "Afterhours" as “the ace up his sleeve” for the Big Record Deal. Oops!
The B Side of the 45 is "Twist and Shout" which was recorded at another Blake extravaganza. That session was held at the site of the original Sun Records. At the time, it was a body shop for cars. This time, however, the session consisted of one band with Jim Dickinson. I remember sitting in the front seat of one of those cars, listening to the band play and watching the performance as if we were at the drive-in movie theater when I spontaneously proclaimed that I was ready to sing Twist and Shout. Clearly I wasn’t the least bit ready! The vocals are a mixed up muddled up all over the map version of the song. But the band enthusiastically followed my circuitous lead. Thus another unrehearsed masterpiece made its way into the suitcases of reel-to-reel-to cassette tapes (and the other side of my single!). A distinct feature of the session that is memorable (even if it seems like a surreal dream) was the microphone. It was a big radio mic that looked like a black metal sunflower. There were no headphones, just a live production of chaos and magic that happened in the body shop at Sun Records that night. Jim Blake decided that back-to-back renditions were in order for the record . . . just in case you didn’t get it the first time!
You asked about my electric guitar? In his teens, my brother bought the Fender Mustang as teenage boys acquire the idea of being a rock star. As the fates would have it, John found his niche elsewhere. Since I already played guitar (and piano), he generously gave that red guitar to me. It turned out to have been quite an exquisite gift.
