Big Star – Vintage 1970s Fully Autographed “Radio City” LP, Signed For Chris Bell / With 2 COA’s, Lifetime Guarantee
An impossibly rare fully autographed first pressing of Big Star’s Radio City, signed in the 1970’s for Big Star co-founder Chris Bell by Alex Chilton, Andy Hummel and Jody Stephens.
We have never seen another Big Star album signed near the time of release, and this one has incredible provenance.
We purchased this in 2009 from well known British music journalist and early Big Star supporter Max Bell (no relation). In 1975, Max Bell interviewed Chris Bell for New Musical Express; Bell had left Big Star and was in London working on solo material. Max Bell was a Big Star fan, and he and Chris became friends.
When Chris returned to Memphis, he had Chilton, Hummel and Stephens sign this copy of Radio City for Max. Since he’d left Big Star and wasn’t on the album, he didn’t sign it himself. Max told me he later regretted not getting Chris to sign it, as Chris died only a few years later, in 1978. (That same year Max Bell wrote what must have been one of the earliest appreciations of the band, “The Big Star Story”, for New Musical Express.)
The band members signed the album on the back cover, in blue ballpoint pen, each signing below their printed name (and position in the photograph). The cover is in very good condition, with some generalized rubbing, and an invisible repair to the partially split spine (most of the spine writing has flaked off). There is a 2 1/4″ invisible repair to the top right edge, and a 1 1/4″ invisible repair to the bottom right seam, and a 3/4″ saw cut to the right edge, marking this as a promotional copy. The well played disc is in VG condition with some scuffs and a vinyl bubble, but plays at least VG+ with no skips or jumps.
Once again, this is the only vintage signed Big Star album we’ve ever seen. With Max Bell’s handwritten letter of authenticity, and Recordmecca’s written lifetime guarantee of authenticity.
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