Clichés (album)

Clichés is the fourth solo album to be released by the American pop-rock musician Alex Chilton. It was recorded and released in 1993.^[1] Chilton recorded the album in New Orleans at Chez Flames, the studio of producer and recording engineer Keith Keller, who also wrote the song "Lies", featured on Chilton's album A Man Called Destruction.

In January, 1992, Chilton was one of eight singer-songwriters (the others being Townes Van Zandt, Guy Clark, Eric Andersen, David Olney, Pat Mears, Paul K & Tom Pacheco) who participated in a short tour of the Netherlands where each artist performed solo. For this series of concerts, Chilton performed much of the music that later became the album Clichés. He explained how the album came about to journalist Keith Spera in 1995:

It was something I really hadn’t done too much, but I sort of enjoy doing it. When I was putting together my repertoire for that, it seemed to me that the best thing I could do was to play these kind of jazzy things. Trying to be like a folk singer or sing country blues didn’t feel as right as doing this kind of jazzy thing.

So maybe a year later, the woman who had booked the tour over there was working with some record companies over there, and called me up and said she wanted me to make a solo record for this label she was working with. I thought about it for a couple of days, and thought about all of those tunes, and thought, “Yeah, I can flesh that into an album.” I ended up making it for this French company instead, New Rose, and then licensed it to Ardent after they had heard it and really dug it. It was proposed to me, and there was some money involved, and I said, “Well, I can use that money, and I think I can do a good record.”

So that’s how it came about....[Engineer and studio owner] Keith [Keller] was really kind of great about doing the record. I went in there thinking I was going to do it in one evening. But it’s so much harder to play on acoustic guitar than it is on electric. I wasn’t really in fighting form for that at all. I got in there, and after 45 minutes my hands were so fuckin’ sore, I could not go any further. He bore with me—we probably did 14 recording sessions to get 12 songs. He hung in there with me about it. I’m probably exaggerating about that, but it certainly wasn’t one evening like I envisioned.^[2]

Track listing

1. "My Baby Just Cares for Me" (Bergman, Vocco, Conn) – 3:44
2. "Time After Time" (Jule Styne, Sammy Cahn) – 2:36
3. "All of You" (Cole Porter) – 1:38
4. "Gavotte" (Johann Sebastian Bach) – 1:39
5. "Save Your Love for Me" (Buddy Johnson) – 2:49
6. "Let's Get Lost" (Frank Loesser, Jimmy McHugh) – 2:01
7. "Funny (But I Still Love You)" (Ray Charles) – 3:13
8. "Frame for the Blues" (Slide Hampton) – 3:34
9. "The Christmas Song" (Mel Tormé, Robert Wells) – 2:38
10. "There Will Never Be Another You" (Harry Warren, Mack Gordon) – 3:02
11. "Somewhere Along the Way" (Kurt Adams, Sammy Gallop) – 3:00
12. "What Was" (Ken Wannberg, Stephen Lehner) – 2:00

References