Rock City

An important but little-heard branch of the <a href="spotify:artist:3UvcmAOZt64oKpP95f6MMM">Big Star</a> family tree, Rock City was a short-lived pop/rock band from Memphis, TN, that featured <a href="spotify:artist:1kWwqZmEoSMeJdyEJR4CdM">Chris Bell</a> and <a href="spotify:artist:6q8Lz8Ef4knDwyHxk76FU8">Jody Stephens</a> shortly before they teamed up with <a href="spotify:artist:7CW5MYWUsyUYiHbiTmVZHe">Alex Chilton</a>. Primarily a studio project, Rock City was the brainchild of <a href="spotify:artist:1kWwqZmEoSMeJdyEJR4CdM">Bell</a> and fellow Memphis pop obsessive Thomas Dean Eubanks, who wrote the lion's share of the group's material. Since both <a href="spotify:artist:1kWwqZmEoSMeJdyEJR4CdM">Bell</a> and the group's keyboard player, <a href="spotify:artist:5b1btJE1x9WHW804K4qoFV">Terry Manning</a>, were engineers at Ardent Studios, Rock City was in the enviable position of being able to record an album in a top-flight facility without the support of a record contract, and the group completed an 11-song set between 1969 and 1970. However, Rock City was unable to secure a release for the album, despite the strength of the material, and when former <a href="spotify:artist:3KGQvnOoqUHi3KxKQMZtXr">Box Tops</a> singer <a href="spotify:artist:7CW5MYWUsyUYiHbiTmVZHe">Alex Chilton</a> (who was a longtime friend of <a href="spotify:artist:1kWwqZmEoSMeJdyEJR4CdM">Bell</a>) expressed his enthusiasm for the material, <a href="spotify:artist:1kWwqZmEoSMeJdyEJR4CdM">Bell</a> and <a href="spotify:artist:6q8Lz8Ef4knDwyHxk76FU8">Stephens</a> parted ways with Eubanks, and after a short spell recording with <a href="spotify:artist:5b1btJE1x9WHW804K4qoFV">Manning</a> as Icewater, the pair teamed up with <a href="spotify:artist:7CW5MYWUsyUYiHbiTmVZHe">Chilton</a> and <a href="spotify:artist:3UvcmAOZt64oKpP95f6MMM">Big Star</a> was born. Rock City's album was lost in a tape storage facility shortly after that, but it was eventually discovered years later and received a belated release in 2003. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi