While it might be a ridiculously huge stretch to say that Chris Stamey has collaborated with every great musician on the planet, he’s certainly made the rounds in the indie universe. His connection to Big Star and Television are the first resume items of note. In the 1970s, he recorded with Richard Lloyd, played bass for Alex Chilton and later released Chris Bell’s “I Am The Cosmos”/“You And Your Sister” single on his Car label.
The following decade was marked by his storied work in the dB’s with Peter Holsapple, a songwriting partnership that outlived the band by a few decades before a 2012 dB’s reunion. In the ’90s, Stamey crossed paths in the studio with Yo La Tengo, Whiskeytown, Le Tigre and other acclaimed acts. More recently, Stamey’s Ardent Studios connection has come full circle as a member of the Big Star Quintet. Led by the band’s sole surviving member, drummer Jody Stephens, the core lineup also includes R.E.M.’s Mike Mills, the Posies’ Jon Auer and Wilco’s Pat Sansone.
Sansone is among the many notable names affiliated with Anything Is Possible (Label 51), Stamey’s latest solo album, which is officially out tomorrow. Other guests include the Lemon Twigs, Probyn Gregory (Brian Wilson), Matt Douglas (Mountain Goats), Matt McMichaels (Mayflies USA), Robert Sledge (Ben Folds Five), Marshall Crenshaw, and longtime friends and collaborators Don Dixon and Mitch Easter. Produced by Stamey at his Modern Recording in Chapel Hill, N.C., the album is a love letter to the late-’50s/mid-’60s AM-radio hits of his youth.
Stamey walks us through Anything Is Possible track by track for this special preview.
—Hobart Rowland
1) “I’d Be Lost Without You”
“The recording started with me pounding out the chords on piano, to which Mitch Easter then added a great twangy, reverbed-out Fender Bass VI a la Carol Kaye, aside Rob Ladd’s distinctive orchestral snare drum and drum-kit flourishes. When Wes Lachot and the Lemon Twigs came into the picture, it morphed into something bigger—much bigger. Then Probyn knew just what icing this cake needed on flugelhorn and trombone. The production admittedly evokes the summery ’60s L.A. Ocean Way sound, but it began differently—with my fascination for Jerome Kern’s “All The Things You Are,” a song that winds through ever-shifting key centers but seems melodically inevitable all the while. As written on piano, it sounded like a song Chet Baker might have sun: sparse, nocturnal, intimate. I learned a lot about the Beach Boys recording style from my studio work with Alex Chilton—something else I have to thank him for.”
2) “Anything Is Possible”
“For a moment in 2023, it seemed as if room-temperature cold fusion power was within our reach. Alas, not yet. But still, sometimes science makes a leap and everything gets better (cars that don’t burn fossil fuels, cell phones) … or worse (cell phones). Not sure where finding life on Mars would fall though. I asked Mitch to play his most Bev Bevan-ish drums. It was so much fun to play bass against his fills and flams. The Lemon Twigs—with Pat Sansone and Wes—join me again on the soaring harmonies here.”
3) “After All This Time”
“Certainly some debt is owed here to the mid-century modern torch-song champions of yesteryear. This performance by the Fellow Travelers is from our one main day of ensemble tracking. After we cut the track, I arranged the strings and brass and added the weepy bottleneck Strat solo. Probyn played flugelhorn.”
4) “Meet Me In Midtown”
“Tony Hatch wrote the classic ‘Downtown’ from a hotel window in Times Square, mistaking it for the wilds of bohemian Greenwich Village. When I heard the song on AM radio as a child, I didn’t know any better either. But living in the Village in the days of CBGB, Lydia Lunch and the Mudd Club, I realized he’d missed the boat. I started to imagine the song he might’ve written if he’d cottoned on to where he was. In the end, I think it also evokes the seedy mystique of the bars around Wall Street, after the stockbrokers abscond for Connecticut each night—so maybe I also missed the boat, geographically. It’s Charles Cleaver (on hyper-compressed grand piano) and Dan Davis on drums, I’m on bass and guitars, with Matt contributing the scintillating alto-sax break. Marshall Crenshaw, Robert Sledge, Lynn Blakey, Matt McMichaels and Rachel Kiel embrace the ‘one more for my baby’ vibe and chime in on the refrains, with a ‘Hernando’s Hideaway’-ish ‘ooh’ in the bridges for good measure.”
5) “Don’t Talk (Put Your Head On My Shoulder)”
“A very minimal track in Brian Wilson’s original Pet Sounds version—but that ride cymbal mesmerized me in high school. Here it’s arranged more as if it were a full-on Wrecking Crew adventure, with Jennifer Curtis playing a million string parts. Jason Foureman bowed and plucked acoustic bass and Josh Starmer played cello, with Rachel on flute, Wes on organ and Dan on drums (except at the end). Again, it’s Wes and the Lemon Twigs in the choir, singing parts that were arranged and recorded for the original version, then left on the cutting-room floor during mixing. (Darian Sahanaja, Wilson’s musical director, kindly sent me the scores for these, plus the original string parts.)
6) “One Day, When My Ship Comes In”
“My dad served in World War II. When he came back, he liked to play some of the songs of the day that evoked the continental separation of couples and the uncertainty as to whether they’d ever really be reunited. ‘I’ll Be Home For Christmas’ is a fine example of these, as is ‘I’ll Be Seeing You.’ I think this feeling of being separated from loved ones, wondering if that ship will ever really come back to port, is something we’ve all experienced. Hopefully, we won’t find war as the reason in years to come. I’m on piano on this one. Thanks to Probyn for crucial additions here: flugelhorn, trombone and guitar fills.”
7) “In A Lonely Place”
“The delicious noir film by the same name didn’t need a theme song. It’s pretty much perfect as is. Nevertheless, I purloined some of Dixon Steele’s dialogue and imagined what a later Roy Orbison-era theme might’ve been. Don Dixon and Probyn cover the brass here, with Charles and Dan again holding it all down. Rachel, Robert Sledge and Matt McMichaels sing harmonies.”
8) “Once, On A Summer’s Day”
“My first single under my own name, back in 1977, was ‘The Summer Sun.’ I love the beach in the wintertime, however … sweaters, sandals, shivers, bonfires, gulls overhead. Rod McKuen and the Anita Kerr Singers had a moody hit in 1968 with The Sea, The Earth, The Sky, and I knew this was (pardon me, McKuen fans) awful and sappy stuff. But I thought of that record (I’m somewhat embarrassed to admit) when I decided to capture a flavor of the beach in a way quite different from what’s called ‘beach music’ in North and South Carolina. Here, summer is in the rearview. Kelly Pratt played trumpet into a batch of electronics, and Rachel added flute. The seagull guitars are mine.”
9) “Done With Love”
“This song lifts a line and an attitude of resignation from “As Tears Go By,” the Marianne Faithful hit. There also might be a debt owed to the kind of chord changes Graham Gouldman used on Hollies hits (or so I remember thinking when I was writing this song). I thought up the chorus sighs later as another idea for the Lemon Twigs. Their touring schedule intervened, and Brett Harris nailed the parts beautifully. I just love the way Charles’ organ solo wraps around the modulated changes here. Ben Robinson is on trumpet. I’m on drums on this one. I wanted a simplicity and a lack of finesse in that regard—and I think I found it.”
10) “Au Revoir And Good-Bye”
Another one performed by the core quartet of Charles, me, Dan and Jason, this number began visually more than musically. I imagined it taking place at the Plaza in New York City, but also under the ‘big clock’ of the Ray Milland film. Somehow this brought me into an almost Richard Rodgers place, harmonically. But I wanted to mix it up a bit, give it a carefree Prohibition/flapper ‘easy come, easy go’ attitude, so I put a waltz section into it—like something Michael Brown’s Left Banke might’ve done. Laura Thomas plays the violin solo, surrounded by Rachel on flute, Matt Douglas on clarinet and Leah Gibson on cello.”
11) “Leaves In The Wind”
“The changes are taken from an instrumental composition of mine, ‘Un Autre Temps.’ I was fond of this as a piano piece, but I thought there might be room for adding some words and melody. This is where it landed. It was the last song written for the record—I always think albums should have something old, new, borrowed and blue. Jason’s acoustic bass brings a delicacy and finesse to the changes here that I love. Probyn told me he wasn’t sure he could find any Chet Baker inside his horn. Was he ever wrong.”
See Chris Stamey live.
