Chris Bell Dies

Chris Bell (January 12, 1951 – December 27, 1978) was a singer, songwriter, and guitarist born in Memphis, Tennessee.

Along with Alex Chilton, he led the power pop band Big Star, which recorded albums during the early 1970s. Bell left the group after Big Star's first album, #1 Record (1972), failed to find commercial success, although some of his musical and lyrical contributions surfaced on the band's second album, Radio City (1974). Bell recorded as a solo artist for the remainder of the 1970s; two of these influential solo recordings, "I Am the Cosmos" and "You and Your Sister", were released on a 1978 single on Car Records. These two songs became popular among collectors of Big Star-related items, and they were later covered on the 1991 Blood album by This Mortal Coil.