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Adding yet another layer of luster to lead singer Alex Chilton's already legendary cult-star, '60s hitmakers the Box Tops hit the stage Friday night pumping out a perfect-for-frat-parties version of their 1968 smash "Cry Like A Baby."
\\"This is our first gig together in 28 years!" Chilton crowed, drinking in the applause. Yes, all five original members were there -- lead guitarist Gary Talley, keyboardist/guitarist John Evans, bassist Billy Cunningham, drummer Danny Smythe, and Chilton -- augmented by two horn players and a pair of female vocalists.
\\And, yes, they look like your dad's best friends. (Except for Chilton, who -- getting into his blue-eyed soul-boy's role -- wore wearing a double-breasted, purple lame bolero jacket over jet-black shirt, slacks, and pointy-toed boots.)
\\Keeping the grits 'n' gravy coming, the band then slammed into Southern soul journeyman Homer Banks' "A Lot Of Love" (a k a the song from which Steve Winwood stole the riff to "Gimme Some Lovin'"), before veering into fellow Memphian Billy Lee Riley's bug-eyed rockabilly classic, "Flying Saucers Rock And Roll" -- which a deadpan Chilton dedicated to "all the Heaven's Gate people."
\\And so it went. Sprinkling their 60-minute set with solid-gold renditions of their greatest hits ("Neon Rainbow," "Soul Deep," "Choo Choo Train"), the Box Tops leapt from the sublime to the ridiculous in a single bound. For every soul-shot on the rocks (Wilson Pickett's Bobby Womack-penned hit, "I'm In Love"; Sam Cooke's "Soothe Me"), there were weak tea-chasers of R&B standards ("Wang Dang Doodle," "Little Latin Lupe Lu"), and Chilton alternated between ersatz Joe Tex mike-stand maneuvers and Jaggeresque swagger.
\\The final touch of it-came-from-Memphis weirdness came when Chilton asked if Gentrys frontman Larry Raspberry was in the house ("I know he's living in the San Fernando Valley somewhere") and noted that the Box Tops only wanted to get a hit as big as that band had with "Keep On Dancing." They then performed the song in the most flaccid fashion known to man, beast or feisty rock critic.
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