Big Star bassist Andy Hummel, a founding member of the cult rock band, has died in Weatherstone, Texas, after a two-year battle with cancer, according to a report in Rolling Stone magazine. He was 59.

Big Star frontman Alex Chilton died just four months ago of a heart attack.

Hummel performed on the group's first two albums in the 1970s, #1 Record and Radio City, and wrote The India Song and Way Out West. He has co-writing credits on songs such as Back of a Car, Life is White and Daisy Glaze.

Big Star, which included guitarist Chris Bell, drummer Jody Stephens and Hummel on bass, formed in Memphis in 1971. Hummel and Bell had played with Stephens in a group called Icewater, but they were renamed Big Star when Chilton joined as singer.

Big Star didn't become a mainstream success but is largely considered the band that invented power pop.

Its three 1970s albums all earned spots on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 greatest and are cited by bands such as R.E.M., Wilco and Teenage Fanclub, as primary influences.

Hummel quit the band in 1972 to finish school and went on to become a longtime employee at Lockheed Martin.

He still occasionally played music on the side, but decided not to participate when the band reunited in the mid-1990s.