Artist:     Big Star

Album:     Live on WLIR

Label:     Omnivore Recordings

Release Date:     1.25.19

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Left for dead after the soul-crushing commercial disappointment of 1972’s critically acclaimed #1 Record and the subsequent departure of songwriting savant Chris Bell, Big Star had risen again with Radio City. The tomb was empty, as the revitalized power-pop martyrs—re-formed as a trio consisting of Alex Chilton, drummer Jody Stephens and bassist Andy Hummel—plotted their next tour with guarded optimism, which proved to be dangerous. Radio City suffered the same fate as its predecessor, buried a second time by record label indifference.

In hindsight, Hummel’s decision to leave Big Star around this period and not to go along for another fruitless ride seems wise. It did, however, open the door for his replacement, John Lightman, to write his own small chapter in the Big Star saga. With Live on WLIR, a wild, mood-swinging set Big Star recorded at New York’s Ultrasonic Studios city for a radio broadcast via one of the city’s most progressive stations, Lightman’s minor part takes on greater weight.

Originally released as 1992’s Live, these once murky recordings have been remastered and restored brilliantly in a vital reissue accompanied by a brief, but revealing, interview with Lightman, conducted by Bell biographer Rich Tupica. Erudite liner notes from Memphis writer/filmmaker Robert Gordon add context and penetrating insight in an economical package that gets right to the heart of the matter. That seems to suit Big Star just fine here, as they swagger through “In the Street” and “Mod Lang” with a confident air, throwing a flurry of angular punches throughout while rejecting any superfluous nonsense. That’s especially true of a brawling, bluesy and defiant “Don’t Lie to Me.” Even the bittersweet and still breathtakingly melodic “September Gurls” and “Back of a Car” gracefully unfurl and swoon with no wasted movements, and after an alternately playful and serious interview with Chilton that yields more questions than answers, he indulges in spare, simply rendered solo acoustic sketches of “Thirteen,” “I’m in Love with a Girl,” “The Ballad of El Goodo” and Loudon Wainwright III’s “Motel Blues,” all of them roughly drawn; each aches with more raw tenderness and beautiful exhaustion than the originals.

Then again, Lightman’s admitted tendency to play a little looser than Hummel leads to soaring, celebratory jamming on a sunny, blown-out “O My Soul,” with its bright, chopping riffs and golden guitar curls. And the band, as a whole, seems more flexible and willing to trespass on new territory in this engaging set, drawing songs from the first two Big Star albums without going too far afield on Stephens’ snappy drumming, Chilton’s slippery, yet substantive and charismatic six-string magic and Lightman’s more malleable approach to the bass. As a snapshot of a band at a crossroads in its career, Live on WLIR is an archivist’s dream.

—Peter Lindblad