Artist · chart history
Box Tops
Band Memphis United States Active 1967–2010
Box Tops formed in 1967 in Memphis, United States and was active until 2010. Box Tops has 4 chart appearances on 4 radio countdowns from 4 stations on RockLists, spanning 1991–2020. The most successful song on radio countdowns is “The Letter”, which appears on 4 lists with a best position of #394. The station that charted Box Tops most often is WNEW-FM (New York, NY), with 1 appearance.
The Box Tops came out of Memphis with a singer, Alex Chilton, whose voice sounded like it had lived a lot longer than he had, and it made them one of the great blue-eyed soul groups of their day. Their hits, "The Letter", "Cry Like a Baby" and "Soul Deep", are textbook examples of the sound Chips Moman and Dan Penn made popular at American Sound Studio in Memphis, where soul and sweet, light pop met in the middle.
"The Letter" is the one everybody knows, a rasping lead vocal driven by pure, breathless urgency. Along with their producers' songs, including numbers by Spooner Oldham, they covered soul records by James & Bobby Purify and Clifford Curry, and even took on Procol Harum's "A Whiter Shade of Pale". Lesser singles such as "Neon Rainbow", "I Met Her in Church" and "Sweet Cream Ladies, Forward March" have since earned a reputation as minor classics. The records came out on Bell.
Chilton went on to lead the power-pop band Big Star and to a solo career, and from 1996 Bill Cunningham and Danny Smythe were back in a later Box Tops lineup.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs by Box Tops on radio countdowns
| # | Song | Strength | Lists | Best | #1s | Peak year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Letter | 4 | #394 | – | – |
Albums with charting songs
Where each song was first released, from MusicBrainz.
Every countdown appearance
| Year | # | Song | Countdown |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 989 | The Letter | WXPN 2020 Greatest Songs of All Time |
| 2014 | 699 | The Letter | BIG 1000 New Year's Countdown (2014) |
| 1997 | 926 | The Letter | WBAB Top 1,023 Rock and Roll Songs of All Time (1997) |
| 1991 | 394 | The Letter | WNEW Firecracker 500 (1991) |
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