Kevin Bronson on September 26th, 2014

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The music of Big Star lives on and on, the legendary Memphis quartet’s albums having over the past decade received belated recognition as classics and their influences ringing loud and clear in the work of next-generation guitar bands. With the huge “Big Star Third” performance coming Saturday [see below for more], it’s important to note a forthcoming addendum to Big Star’s catalog, which includes three albums from the ’70s and one from 2005 made after the Posies’ Jon Auer and Ken Stringfellow joined original members Alex Chilton and Jody Stephens. It’s “Big Star Live in Memphis” (due Nov. 4 on Ominivore Recordings), a double-LP, CD and DVD package that captures Big Star’s performance with the latter lineup on Oct. 29, 1994. It is the only known professionally filmed Big Star concert; the tracklist boasts 20 songs including Big Star’s hits (“September Gurls,” “The Ballad of El Goodo,” etc.) and covers of Todd Rundgren, the Kinks and T. Rex. The collection joins other notable Big Star-related projects such as Rhino’s 2009 boxed set “Keep an Eye on the Sky,” the 2006 tribute album “Big Star, Small World” and the 2012 documentary “Big Star: Nothing Can hurt Me.”

Big Star’s lone surviving member, Stephens, has helped keep the music alive in concert halls too, even after Chilton’s sudden death in March 2010 right before the band was scheduled to play the South by Southwest Music Festival. On Saturday night at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre, the star-studded ensemble Big Star Third Live will perform 1972’s “#1 Record” and 1978’s “Third” in their entirety, along with some songs from 1974’s “RAdio City.” The concert, a benefit for the Autism Think Tank, will a feture chamber orchestra conducted by Van Dyke Parks, and the band will include the likes of Stephens, Stringfellow, Auer, Mike Mills (R.E.M.), Ira Kaplan (Yo La Tengo), Mitch Easter (Let’s Active) and Chris Stamey (the dB’s), among others. And scheduled guests include the Bangles, Aimee Mann, Jason Falkner, Pete Yorn, Tommy Keene, Grouplove, Dan Wilson, Dean Wareham, Jason Falkner, Sarabeth Tucek and Luther Russell.

Tickets available here.

||| Stream: “Feel” and “Daisy Glaze” from “Big Star Live in Memphis”

Photo by John Fry