Like Flies on Sherbert
| Like Flies on Sherbert | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Studio album by Alex Chilton | ||||
| Released | 1979 | |||
| Recorded | 1978–79 | |||
| Length |
35:28 (Peabody) 29:11 (Aura) |
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| Label | Peabody Records (1979), Aura Records (1980) | |||
| Producer | Alex Chilton, Jim Dickinson | |||
| Alex Chilton chronology | ||||
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| Professional ratings | |
|---|---|
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic |
   link
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| Robert Christgau | (B) link |
| Rolling Stone | (Favorable) link |
| Tiny Mix Tapes | (Favorable) link |
Like Flies on Sherbert is the first solo album to be released by the American pop-rock musician Alex Chilton. He had previously recorded a collection of songs in 1969 and 1970, ultimately titled 1970, but this was not released until 1996. Released in 1979, Like Flies on Sherbert was recorded at two Memphis studios, Sam Phillips and Ardent Studios in 1978 and 1979. Chilton had previously been a member of the Box Tops and Big Star.
The album was originally released in fall 1979 in a batch of 500 copies by Peabody Records, a label run by Memphis singer and guitarist Sid Selvidge. Aura Records, a British label, put out a version that differed slightly from the original issue. A number of CD releases followed in the 1990s and 2000s, some with added bonus tracks. Selvidge's 1998 Peabody CD reissue collects all the tracks from the previous Peabody edition and the Aura reissue and adds three tracks: "Baby Doll," "She's the One That's Got It" and "Stranded on a Dateless Night."
The photograph used for the cover of the album was taken by noted American photographer William Eggleston, who had previously provided the cover for Big Star's second album Radio City.
The songs on the album were either Chilton originals or obscure cover versions of songs by artists including KC and the Sunshine Band, The Bell Notes, Ernest Tubb and the Carter Family. Critic Robert Christgau described them as a "bag of wrecked covers and discarded originals". All were recorded with false starts and vocal and musical errors, either created by accident or on purpose. Producer Jim Dickinson later described the recording of "No More the Moon Shines on Lorena": "Sometimes there was somebody in the control room and a lot of times there was nobody there. The beginning of 'Lorena' where it's spoken, that was overdubbed because whoever started the machine didn’t start it soon enough." The musicians also sometimes used instruments that were not fully functioning, as Dickinson explained: "The Minimoog was sitting around broken at [the studio]. I played it and all I did was twist knobs."
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