Nothing Can Hurt Me
A film about Big Star would have seemed far-fetched even to the band’s staunchest fans 30 years ago. Big Star records were hard to find and even harder to explain when you tried to put your finger on what was so wonderful about them. Was it the crystalline sound of Chris Bell’s and Alex Chilton’s chiming guitars? Was it the glorious groove and clamor of Jody Stephens’ drums? The Southern-teenage, suburban Anglophile way they wrote and sang their songs? Their fans, many of them fellow musicians, spread the word with missionary zeal. For believers, dropping the name Big Star in conversation wasn’t some lame hipster move. It was about sharing a personal discovery.
My own discovery came at a record store where I was working in the summer of 1978. A copy of the group’s second album, Radio City (1974), ended up in the “play bin” at the store, and I could finally hear what I had been reading about in Creem and Trouser Press. Radio City spoke directly to me like someone from my neighborhood. It was full of retro-pop moments that conjured the Beatles, the Who, the Kinks, the Byrds — all the sounds and styles I couldn’t get enough of, yet seemingly out-of-sync with the times.
I wasn’t alone in my admiration. By the end of the 1990s, there were cover versions of Big Star songs by Cheap Trick, the Bangles and Matthew Sweet. The Replacements’ Paul Westerberg even wrote a hero-worshipping anthem called “Alex Chilton.”
The cult of Big Star overshadowed its initial lack of commercial success, but critical acclaim grew over time and with various reissues and repackagings. After decades of downplaying the band’s legacy, Chilton did an about-face and played some Big Star gigs along with Jody Stephens and members of the Posies.
Aside from the music, the intrigue surrounding Big Star was fueled by the human story. Group founder Bell died in a car crash in 1978. Chilton succumbed to a heart attack in 2010, and original Big Star bassist Andy Hummel died just four months later, of cancer. Stephens is the group’s only surviving member.
The film never skirts the group’s turbulent dynamic — the reports of drugs, the depression, the self-destructive behavior. But behind the darker side of the Big Star tale is beauty, and that’s exactly what you see in Nothing Can Hurt Me. The documentary is an engaging flow of old and new interviews, a treasure trove of rare video and photos — and, of course, the music itself, which is all still there in the grooves of the records. The songs and sounds are preserved for all to find. A Big Star record can work its magic at any time.
Nashville power-pop pioneer Bill Lloyd has recorded with Jody Stephens.
