Big Star Bassist Andy Hummel Dead of Cancer

Musician Andy Hummel, the original bassist for American power pop band Big Star, has died of cancer.

Hummel,59, passed away just four months after fellow Big Star band member and lead singer Alex Chilton died at the same age of a heart attack.

Hummel played on the band's first two albums, "#1 Record," and "Radio City." He also co-wrote one of Big Star's most notable songs, "Back of a Car."

Big Star never achieved mainstream commercial success, but their alchemic fusing of the best aspects of bands like the Beatles, The Byrds and The Who earned them enduing cult status. Rolling Stone said that the band, "...created a seminal body of work that never stopped inspiring succeeding generations of rockers, from the power-pop revivalists of the late 1970s to alternative rockers at the end of the century to the indie rock nation in the new millennium."  

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