Like Flies on Sherbert

Alex Chilton | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (July 22, 2003)
• Original Release Date: 1996
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Last Call Records
• ASIN: B0000AUHRT
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,080,744 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Boogie Shoes

2. My Rival

3. Hey! Little Child

4. Hook Or Crook

5. I've Had It

6. Rock Hard

7. Girl After Girl

8. Waltz Across Texas

9. Alligator Man

10. Like Flies On Sherbert

11. Baron Of Love, part II

12. No More The Moon Shines On Lorena

13. Baby Doll

14. She's The One Who's Got It

15. Stranded On A Dateless Night

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Sherbert Isn't Ice Cream, January 31, 2000

By 

Edd S. Hurt (Boulder, CO USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Like Flies on Sherbert (Audio CD)

This is a great album. It's about how music is played as opposed to beautiful musical ideas. It's about interaction and willful screwups. Most Big Star fans don't like this album, recorded at various studios in Memphis around 1978 and originally released, on LP, in the fall of 1979 (those original LPs of "Sherbert" numbered only 500). There's more verve, insolence and real musicianship here than in just about any release since the 1950s. Alex Chilton has been quoted as saying that "Like Flies On Sherbert" is his masterpiece, and who are we to argue? Plus drummer/monologuist Ross Johnson's tale of drugs, Soft-Tex and Elvis, "Baron Of Love Part 2," is worth the price of admission, as is "Hey! Little Child" and the amazing "Hook Or Crook." This album is the Memphis spirit, as live as you would wish to have it. Just remember, when you listen to this crazy quilt of obscure covers from artists as disparate as Ernest Tubb, Jimmy C. Newman, and K.C. and the Sunshine Band, that a guy named Elvis did something quite similar with odd material back in the '50s. And for all the supposed indisicipline of the performances, these are great musicians just having a good time, Memphis-style. Don't miss it. I got a love to go...

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Shoulda Used the Soft-Tex?, April 23, 2004

By 

Roger Duprat "R. D." (Cleveland) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Like Flies on Sherbert (Audio CD)

This is the album that divides Alex Chilton fans. On the one hand, there are people who revere the Big Star albums as the ultimate revisionist take on British-Invasion and west-coast pop music. "#1 Record" and "Radio City" certainly derive from the Byrds, Beatles, Zombies, Who, Kinks, as well as from the Beach Boys and Moby Grape. And the Big Star albums are untouchable. On the other hand, there are fans who, in my opinion, get the bigger picture and see how "Like Flies on Sherbert" and other solo works by Chilton ("Bangkok," "Walking Dead," "Take Me Home and Make Me Like It") are the next step past mere reverence for the admittedly storied past.

I'm of the opinion that "Sherbert" is one of the great albums of the late '70s, or indeed of any era. As a corrective to the mere reverence I referred to earlier, it's unbeatable; and of course it fits in with the so-called psychobilly of bands like the Cramps. Yet "Sherbert" is unique because it combines a lingering affection for the somewhat naive products of men like Ernest Tubb and Jimmy C. Newman with a desire to reveal the rather unpleasant or at least geographically and romantically fraught realities that lie beneath seemingly artless songs like A. P. Carter's version of an old Civil War song, "Lorena," that later became, through some alchemy, a song about slavery called both "Way Down in Alabama" and "No More the Moon Shines on Lorena."

Many, including the obviously challenged folk at AMG, simply dismiss this album. Goodness gracious, what delicate sensibilities one must have to be offended by the twanging guitars and sprattling synthesizers of "Sherbert." And merciful heavens, sometimes the singing is a bit out of tune, and on the brilliant cover of K. C. and the Sunshine Band's "Boogie Shoes," Chilton even starts singing a bit early, and he didn't correct the mistake. Of course, "Boogie Shoes" is such a sacred object, such a classic, that the desecration is unbearable.

There are a few other artists who, having recorded such sublime and well-crafted pop music, have chosen to bare their souls in such a manner while remaining essentially unknowable; and few who have been brave enough to take a romp through the pop-music past in a way that actually shows respect for it. What I think the detractors of "Sherbert" miss is that true respect is not always solemn.

This record was originally released in late 1979 on Sid Selvidge's Peabody label, in a limited editon of 500. Aura Records released it in a sonically inferior version, in 1980, leaving off Ross Johnson's "Baron of Love pt. II" and "No More the Moon Shines on Lorena," and replacing them with "Boogie Shoes." There have been various reissues since then. This reissue restores the original tracks, keeps "Boogie Shoes," and adds something kind of sick called "Baby Doll" and an instrumental version of a Cordell Jackson tune. The record was produced by Jim Dickinson and makes a nice companion piece to his early-'70s classic "Dixie Fried," which mixed covers of Carl Perkins, Furry Lewis and Bob Dylan for a somewhat similar listening experience.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Totally Unique Experience, August 24, 2001

By 

Sondra Snodgrass (Worthington, OH United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Like Flies on Sherbert (Audio CD)

There are only a few albums that are greater than the sum of their parts. Even a collection of great songs (for example, Dylan's Blood on the Tracks) is in the end just a collection of great songs, whereas the type of album that I'm talking about is, in the end, a totally unique experience. Albums of this type include Big Star's Third/Sister Lovers, John Coltrane's A Love Supreme, Charles Gayle's Touchin' on Trane, Albert Ayler's Spiritual Unity, Junior Kimbrough's All Night Long and the album that I'm reviewing, Alex Chilton's Like Flies on Sherbert. I feel no need to defend this album against the many criticisms that have been leveled against it-either you get it or you don't. From Baron of Love through the cataclysmic ending of the title track, the listener is given the rare opportunity to witness the quirky, yet passionate impetus at the root of Memphis music. Like Flies on Sherbert is for Memphis music what John Water's early movies are for the underbelly of Baltimore: Both combine parody of and passion for their subjects to such an extent that the line between the two is thoroughly blurred. To some listeners this is irritating. To me it is exciting.