In this That Thing You Do! inspired article series from State House Sessions,
artists talk about their life, career & where they were when they first heard themselves on the radio
Turning the dial, slowing your movements, holding your breath and bending your ear to listen should feel as mundane as it looks. But for those who fondly remember where they were when they first heard a timeless voice filtered through muffled airwaves, it’s an action full of promise – far different than picking up a TV remote and changing the channel or closing one window on your computer in favor of another. If you grew up with that flurry of hisses and murmurs, sharp and soft, crashing into each other until something clear finally spilled from the wreckage, becoming swept away by a song on the radio was like stumbling onto something secret, being played for the first time in real time, for no one else but you.
In 1996, writer/director Tom Hanks cast a similar spell on screen, painting the fictional Wonders with a starry-eyed astonishment that made That Thing You Do! the rare music minded modern film to be unabashedly sweet, funny and completely unconcerned with being anything else. Adding white wall tires and a gleaming retro sheen to the age-old story of a small town band living out their wildest dreams, Hanks’ directorial debut is every bit as comforting and nostalgic and sincere as that familiar maze of AM/FM static. Although no individual moment projects the pure, child-like excitement of it all quite like the one in which they first hear themselves being played over the very airwaves where so many of their heroes live and breathe. And while pain can frequently feel like the more all-encompassing emotion in art and life – instant in a way that can sometimes make happiness seem more gradual, less contagious – a scene that can spark such joy proves that’s not always so.
BUT WHAT’S IT REALLY LIKE?
“We were all very excited because it’s a shared experience, it’s not an individual experience. It’s a shared experience because one, we were all together and that made it that much more thrilling, but two, with terrestrial radio, especially back then, there’s more of a feel that there lots of people tuned into this,” recalls Jody Stephens of Big Star. “Possibly because there’s a lack of choice.”
He laughs and I can just about picture him as we chat by phone – me at home in Pennsylvania, Stephens at LAX during a break in travel – finishing his sentence surrounded by people with their heads buried in devices. When Big Star was formed by Stephens, Alex Chilton, Chris Bell and Andy Hummel in 1971, multi-media programming was still a few decades away from its current deluge, making any radio exposure that much more of a coveted, sure fire way to reach a large audience. Today, he is the only surviving member of the groups original line-up – Chilton and Hummel each passed in 2010, while Bell was tragically killed in a car accident in 1978 – and his clearest memory of the excitement of hearing their music on air was by chance, on tour, as a band.
“We were playing a gig in New Orleans and we were all listening to the radio and ‘In The Street’ came on.” As Stephens remembers now, in that moment it felt remarkable for everyone to be in the same room, realizing side by side that so many outside of those walls were hearing it, too – maybe for the first time. “It makes it so exciting,” he tells me decades later, a bit of awe still in his voice.
The image of a young band on the road, listening to music at a crowded table, laughing as they sip their drinks and jumping out of their chairs when they hear their own song fill the air, is magic. But for the relative few that know the feeling firsthand, it’s also symbolic of how one day an artist’s expression can be cast out into the cosmos, where it could be loved so deeply that it soon becomes a part of someone else’s story. For Stephens, it was undeniable proof that the music they were making as a unit was beginning to take hold and travel far beyond their circle and state.
“FM 100 at some point did an interview with Alex and Andy – that’s a local Memphis station, back when they were sort of an underground station. I may have heard it then and that was exciting, but you know I don’t think I was with anyone and I understood that people in Memphis were tuned into this, but I don’t know. It was so much more thrilling to be with Alex and Andy and Chris and listening to the song, and in New Orleans, which wasn’t our hometown.”
Released in the summer of 1972 and featuring such classics as “In The Street,” “Thirteen,” and “The Ballad of El Goodo,” Big Star’s # 1 Record is universally recognized as one of the most influential and iconic albums of all time. All these years after the dizzying rush of that initial airplay, Stephens says it’s gratifying to know that people were, and are, listening.
“It certainly made an impact on me in the fact that, ‘Oh people outside of Memphis think enough of the song to actually feature it on the radio and they think enough of us to have invited us down to play this show.’ That was certainly impactful. Other than that, just being a part of the band and a part of that recording process, holding the record in my hand, was so satisfying and fulfilling. That was enough. I didn’t really need everything else. I got to tell you, it’s all been very nice in the subsequent forty years or whatever, but just being a part of that band. Everybody kind of has this sense of wanting to belong to something. Early on, I was able to have that sense with Alex, Andy and Chris. I mean, certainly when my brother and I had a band together, but this was something that was getting out beyond the borders of Memphis.”
Zed for Zulu, the latest record from Jody Stephens’ latest project, Those Pretty Wrongs is available now
By Caitlin Phillips
02.18.2020