Mott The Hoople 9: Compilations

A hits album always makes a good way for a label to keep making money off an act they no longer distribute, and if the label in question hasn’t lost all the masters in a fire, they can sometimes do pretty well. By the mid-‘70s, Mott The Hoople had already been on two labels, with shifting band members, so the well was both plundered and muddied.

The band’s original producer, Guy Stevens, compiled Rock And Roll Queen for a UK release after the band jumped to Columbia, but it took another two years (and two actual hit albums) for it to be released in America. It’s a fairly rocking set; after the “title track”, we get half a minute of “The Wheel Of The Quivering Meat Conception”, which was basically the end of “The Journey”. From there, the sequence leans on their harder stuff, ending with the ten-minute “Keep A Knockin” medley from Wildlife. Save “Thunderbuck Ram”, Ian Hunter takes every lead vocal, and there is one rarity in the form of “Midnight Lady”, a B-side available nowhere else.

Two decades on, after Rhino Records partnered with Atlantic, somebody had the bright idea to put together a more expansive look at those albums. Backsliding Fearlessly: The Early Years was a terrific overview, borrowing equally from each, leaning just slightly on the debut, with key rarities thrown in. The wonderful B-side “Road To Birmingham” opens the set; the outtakes “Going Home” and “Little Christine” were already highlights of 1980’s UK rarities set Two Miles From Heaven. (A box set called Mental Train served up all four albums, each with bonus tracks, plus a disc of outtakes and another of live recordings on six CDs, released in 2018 worldwide, save the US. Of course.)

That’s a lot of attention given to some very good music, but what of the period that commenced with “All The Young Dudes”? Once the Hunter-less Mott evolved without him and stopped selling records, Columbia made sure to cash in on their own heyday with the band via Greatest Hits. A fitting title, it included all the obvious tracks, from “All The Way To Memphis” to “Roll Away The Stone”. The cover art helpfully pictured all the band members and who played what, and the set also included two singles from 1974, “Foxy Foxy” and “Saturday Gigs”, both since added to the expansion of The Hoople. (The CD you can get now adds “Sweet Jane” and “One Of The Boys”. Also in the ‘90s, The Ballad Of Mott: A Retrospective crammed much of the Columbia era onto two discs following exactly four tracks from the Atlantic era.)

Mott The Hoople Rock And Roll Queen (1974)—3
Mott The Hoople Greatest Hits (1976)—3½
2003 remastered expanded CD: same as 1976, plus 2 extra tracks
Mott The Hoople Backsliding Fearlessly: The Early Years (1994)—4

Mott The Hoople 8: Live

Ian Hunter’s final run with Mott The Hoople was celebrated somewhat with a live album covering two continents. Side one of Live was recorded at Broadway’s relatively new Uris Theater (fun fact: the opening act was Queen) a few years before Barry Manilow’s residency, while side two was captured a few months earlier at the Hammersmith Odeon. Even in these locales, the band is still fairly sloppy, even if they weren’t the same five guys from five years before.

In 1974, live albums were usually designed as hits collections, and outside of “All The Way From Memphis” and “All The Young Dudes”, this one doesn’t approach that model. Things slow down big time on “Rest In Peace” and “Rose”, both only known from B-sides. They also stomp through “Walkin’ With A Mountain” and “Sweet Angeline” from the early days—the latter with an extended survey of the “slags” in the audience—and a cacophonous medley springing from “Jerkin’ Crocus” and “Rock & Roll Queen”, stopping off at “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On” and “Get Back” (lyrics not even close) on the way to “Violence”.

The original LP only had room for excerpts from the shows, which the eventual 30th Anniversary Edition attempted to rectify by expanding each album side to a full CD and with the tracks presented in the sequence performed. Both begin with the grandiose “Jupiter” from Holst’s Planets; the Broadway half then starts with a verse from “American Pie” before “The Golden Age Of Rock ‘N’ Roll”. While recorded only five months apart, there’s only the mildest overlap between the halves, so it’s hardly repetitive. That said, the longer “Walking With A Mountain” on the London disc is devoted mostly to Ariel Bender’s fretwork, which occasionally resembles Jimmy Page at his clumsiest.

Mott The Hoople Live (1974)—3
2004 30th Anniversary Edition: same as 1974, plus 13 extra tracks

Mott The Hoople 7: The Hoople

Still trying to keep up with their promise, Mott The Hoople had more changes in its lineup. Morgan Fisher joined the band on keyboards to fill in the hole Verden Allen left the album before, and after Mick Ralphs ran off to form Bad Company with Paul Rodgers, Luther Grosvenor from Spooky Tooth took over on lead guitar under the name Ariel Bender. The Hoople (finishing up the previous album’s example) is very much Ian Hunter’s album, as his affected vocals and pounding piano dominate every track.

Most of the songs involve his main obsession, the treadmill of the music industry. A faux-serious introduction heralding “The Golden Age Of Rock ‘N’ Roll”, before falling into a typical Hunter boogie, with traffic-jam horns, female backing vocals, and a truly bent guitar solo. “Marionette” is something of a mini-opera, with other band members contributing vocals as counterpart, and somewhat harrowing. The hooker paean “Alice” has a dizzying pile of rhymes that deserves an actual melody instead of Ian’s posing. And then there’s “Crash Street Kidds”, which combines three different riffs in three different tempos, any of which would have been welcomed by Kiss, seems to crumble into nothing, and then starts all over again, running another three minutes until a chilling “now you’re dead” chant.

Most fans agree that “Born Late ‘58”, Overend Watts’ sole writing credit for the band, is up there with any other Mott classic, and it fits the blueprint. A tribute to the woman who’s still his wife to this day, “Trudi’s Song” finally turns the volume down, sounding like a refugee from Wildlife. The quiet is short-lived, as a loud conversation begins “Pearl ‘N’ Roy (England)” until Ian tells them to shut up so they can boogie some more. “Through The Looking Glass” would appear to be another pretty piano ballad, but slathers on orchestration somewhere between Bowie theatrics and Broadway tragedy. “Roll Away The Stone” brings everything back to the start for a simple anthem, but re-recorded from the previous year’s single because Mick Ralphs had played on it.

The Hoople has its fans, but these ears find it way too overblown to be taken all at once. (The reissue is worth seeking out, as it includes some non-album singles and B-sides worthy of being heard again.) Very soon Ian Hunter would leave the band himself, leaving the rhythm section and Morgan Fisher to carry on as simply Mott, and then as British Lions.

Mott The Hoople The Hoople (1974)—2½
2006 remastered expanded CD: same as 1974, plus 7 extra tracks

Mott The Hoople 6: Mott

After David Bowie glitted off to his next musical obsession, the newly popular Mott The Hoople were back to making their own records their own way. Mott was a return to the “straight” sound of their Atlantic years, though we do detect some leftover Mick Ronson influence on Mick Ralphs’ solos. (Also, they were down to a quartet, Verden Allen having tired of having his songs passed over.)

The album is mostly pounding rockers with a few quieter, moodier pieces, and both approaches have their hits and misses. “All The Way From Memphis” is a perfect opener, with the same notes hit for fourteen seconds and a terrific shout-along chorus. “Whizz Kid” pummels past with little subtlety, but we will allow that some of the backing vocals in the verses are right out of Bowie. And we don’t know why the song stops on a dime, returning for a few seconds way in the distance. Starting with a grand dramatic intro, “Hymn For The Dudes” soon quiets down too, and would appear to be another response to their perceived success. Then it’s back to the stomp for “Honaloochie Boogie” with its long vowel and oddly processed vocals, and “Violence” is pretty obnoxious, with an incongruous violin (ha!) over the chorus.

“Drivin’ Sister” is more mindless boogie framed by obvious sound effects, but then there’s “Ballad Of Mott The Hoople (26th March 1972, Zürich)”, which seemingly references one of the band’s last gigs before Bowie supposedly rescued them. It’s gentle and a little sad, and very sweet. Up to this point we’ve only heard from Ian Hunter’s mouth, with Mick Ralphs limited to just one lead vocal. “I’m A Cadillac” works car clichés over a couple of familiar hooks, but the best part is when it morphs into “El Camino Dolo Roso”, a sneaky instrumental that gains a lot of momentum. Finally, “I Wish I Was Your Mother” is just plain odd, trilling with mandolins, and fretting over some kind of Freudian dilemma.

While more solid than All The Young Dudes, Mott is merely serviceable rock in a familiar setting. The boys were back on track. It wouldn’t last, of course.

Mott The Hoople Mott (1973)—3
2006 remastered expanded CD: same as 1973, plus 4 extra tracks

Mott The Hoople 5: All The Young Dudes

The legend is usually more interesting than the truth, and this very much applies to the phoenix-like return of Mott The Hoople. Having become frustrated with their career path to date, the band grumbled to David Bowie, then having just exploded with the Ziggy Stardust album. He gave them a little song called “All The Young Dudes”, and Mott followed the demo to the note, but with the key embellishment of Ian Hunter’s asides during the choruses and over the fadeout. Suddenly they had a hit, were mistakenly labeled glam rock, and saw their ensuing fifth album, produced by Bowie, become a major worldwide smash.

The thing is, if not for the lead vocals, All The Young Dudes sounds more like a Bowie album than a Mott album. For one thing, the producer insisted on adding his own saxophone honking throughout. Also, his backing vocals are unmistakable, as are the synched acoustic and electric rhythm touches. The string arrangements are better matched to his albums, or even Lou Reed’s Transformer, Bowie’s other grand resuscitative gesture that year. Just to muddle the lineage, the album opens with their own tame cover of “Sweet Jane”.

Things get back to the Stonesy crunch for “Momma’s Little Jewel” and “Jerkin’ Crocus”. “Sucker” has potential, but again, belies the Bowie touch. “One Of The Boys” takes a while to get rolling, bracketed by a ringing telephone for some reason, and features a riff that Mick Ralphs would soon recycle for the opener on the first Bad Company album. Speaking of which, “Ready For Love” appears here, in a too-long version that entails both an alternate chorus and the subtitle “After Lights”. Despite the ill-advised strings, “Sea Diver” is another Ian Hunter weepie, and welcome to these ears.

The title track notwithstanding, and Verden Allen’s lead vocal on “Soft Ground” conjuring Bon Scott at his wackiest, All The Young Dudes is at its best whenever his wheezing organ dominates the mix. After all, a band’s biggest hit isn’t necessarily its best album. (For a wider picture, the eventual expanded CD added some early Bowie-less rough drafts, a couple of live versions from a year after the album was released, and an alternate mix of the hit single with Bowie himself singing the verses against Ian’s usual chorus.) At least Mott was given a chance to keep going, and they would, and did.

Mott The Hoople All The Young Dudes (1972)—3
2006 remastered expanded CD: same as 1972, plus 7 extra tracks

Mott The Hoople 4: Brain Capers

As if to prove that they hadn’t wimped out on anyone, Mott The Hoople’s fourth album is all about attitude, and balancing power, passion and speed. Even better, Ian Hunter sits squarely behind the lead mike for most of Brain Capers, and that makes a big difference.

For the title alone, “Death May Be Your Santa Claus” should win a medal, but it’s backed up by a stupidly long percussive intro before blasting through a glorious kiss-off, self-censored on the choruses to prove their own terms. Since wacky covers were a hallmark of the band, “Your Own Backyard” is a clean-and-sober anthem by Dion DiMucci (yes, of the Belmonts) given the Mott treatment, then Mick Ralphs insists on singing “Darkness, Darkness” by the Youngbloods, full of tension and bite. We’re due for another Ian Hunter epic, and “The Journey” delivers, from its lighter-waving verses and choruses, a sensitive bridge, and then a pile-driving second section, Ian’s voice cracking at all the right spots.

“Sweet Angeline” brings straight rock ‘n roll via pounding piano eighth notes, and the priceless rhyming summation, “You have rendered me obscene.” He strains to hit the notes on “Second Love”, which Verdon Allen wrote, but once again the quiet beginning gives way to volume, and even some mariachi horns from Jim Price, straight off of Sticky Fingers and Exile On Main St. (It was 1971, after all.) The anger that opened the album comes back full throttle on “The Moon Upstairs”, all fuzz and riffing, and no self-censorship this time. And just to put forth a final statement, “The Wheel Of The Quivering Meat Conception” presents the last minute or so of the end of “The Journey”.

Brain Capers was the band’s big shot to make it, and it nearly didn’t, if not for one generous fan. We’ll get to that soon enough, but for now, revel in the sound of a hard-working combo trying their damnedest to blow the shackles off their potential. Even with all the dynamics and pauses, your knees will jog happily.

Mott The Hoople Brain Capers (1971)—4

Mott The Hoople 3: Wildlife

Suggesting a sojourn in the country, a title like Wildlife would have us think this is a gentler Mott The Hoople, from the straightforward “boys outside” photo to a predominant acoustic guitar on several tracks. And are those zodiac symbols next to their names on the back cover? Not as immediately heavy as the first two albums were, probably due to working without producer Guy Stevens, it’s managed to go unnoticed, despite some gems.

They’re still a band at this point, as Mick Ralphs gets the first vocal on “Whisky Women”, which several have said predicts Bad Company. Despite those acoustic strums, there’s still plenty of lead and that overloaded organ. Ian Hunter provides the sleepy “Angel Of Eighth Ave.”, and Mick comes back for “Wrong Side Of The River”, which is even sleepier, but there’s some great interplay in the stops and starts. “Waterlow” might take things a little far, a cracked vocal lamenting “blue broken tears” over piano and weepy strings, but Ian manages to redeem himself with a powerful take on “Lay Down”, Melanie’s super-hit song about Woodstock.

The album gets even weirder on side two with “It Must Be Love”, where a pedal steel keeps up the country pace, and a chorus that mostly repeats the word “love”. Ian can’t pick up the energy for “Original Mixed-Up Kid”, which is probably why Mick is back to declare why “Home Is Where I Want To Be”. The band must have known that a lightweight collection of seesawing songs from these guys wasn’t going to fly, so the set ends with an extremely loud and pounding live performance of Little Richard’s “Keep A’Knockin’” that runs through “Mean Woman Blues” and “What’d I Say”, strangely attributed to Jerry Lee Lewis.

So while Wildlife is a little disjointed, and there’s too much Mick and not enough Ian, it’s not a bad album, per se. At least it’s paced well.

Mott The Hoople Wildlife (1971)—3

Mott The Hoople 2: Mad Shadows

Producer Guy Stevens was still in charge on Mott The Hoople’s second album, beginning with a title already rejected by Steve Winwood. The cover—something of a cross between a Rorschach and an X-ray—hints at the darkness within, and indeed, Mad Shadows is an unsettling listen at points.

If the spooky beginning of “Thunderbuck Ram” sounds familiar, that’s because it’s the sound Mick Ralphs would bring to Bad Company four years later. Here, he shows why he wasn’t the lead singer in that band either. “No Wheels To Ride” begins as another lengthy, directionless Ian Hunter lament, but when the “chorus” kicks in, the song gains purpose and power. “You Are One Of Us” gets to the point a lot faster, and sets up the stomp of “Walking With A Mountain”. Mick alternates Chuck Berry riffs with Keith Richard copies while the track pounds away, and they even go so far as to chant the tag from “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” over the end.

Slow and sad, “I Can Feel” is more Ian feeling sorry for himself, but it’s still pretty, with a gospel choir counterpart and a flute effect that might be a guitar, we can’t tell. On “Threads Of Iron”, Ian sings the verses, while Mick takes the darker choruses, soloing like Ron Wood all the way. After two passes, the band beats the riff into the ground for another three minutes. Just when you think they’re going to calm down to a resolved ending, they pick it back up and beat it harder into hamburger and chaos, Ian screaming like he’s been stabbed. Maybe it sounded too much like the end of the first album, so Guy sent Ian back to the piano and told him to play something or else. The result was “When My Mind’s Gone”, a simple (there’s that word again) mediation for block chords with organ and bass underneath. If it really was as spontaneous as legend says, it’s an even more impressive summation of the turmoil Ian sang over the rest of the album.

Most sophomore aren’t as good as debuts, and Mad Shadows does seem like both a retread and a reaction. But given a little time, songs emerge from the murk.

Mott The Hoople Mad Shadows (1970)—3

Mott The Hoople 1: Mott The Hoople

While they’re best known for a song David Bowie gave them, Mott The Hoople had already recorded four albums and disbanded before that happened. Going back to those early albums for perspective, it’s easy to hear what Bowie heard in them, even if they weren’t for everybody.

Their self-titled debut begins with a raucous instrumental cover of the Kinks’ “You Really Got Me”, with Mick Ralphs’ wah-wah taking the lead. That gives an idea of their power and volume, but it’s the next track (another cover) that demonstrates the template. “At The Crossroads” was originally recorded a few months earlier by the Sir Douglas Quintet, and Mott’s version uses the same template of guitar, bass, drums, piano and organ, with Ian Hunter’s drawl giving away shades of Dylan. It’s even more apparent on “Laugh At Me”, which had been Sonny Bono’s first solo hit; it starts tentatively and builds to a two-chord frenzy over six minutes, with voices chanting the band’s name a la the “woo-woo”s on “Sympathy For The Devil”. “Backsliding Fearlessly”, the first original song here, solidifies what we’re hearing: Blonde On Blonde crossed with Jimmy Miller’s Stones productions.

The Stones sound comes forward on “Rock And Roll Queen”, and may well have been an influence on “Bitch”. “Rabbit Foot And Toby Time” is a basic two-minute jam that bursts into “Half Moon Bay”, another lengthy variation on side one’s themes (piano arpeggios in 6/8) until about halfway through where it turns into a pseudo-classical fugue. This is why some say the band’s dual keyboards are more reminiscent of Procol Harum, another band named by producer Guy Stevens. Once that’s out of the way, it’s back to the original theme, played eternally through the fade. Finally, “Wrath And Roll” presents the last two minutes of the jam begun in “You Really Got Me”, ending with glorious cacophony.

Mott The Hoople doesn’t have a lot of variety, but sometimes rock ‘n roll has to be boneheadedly simple. If you need something complex, stare all you like at the Escher print used on the cover.

Mott The Hoople Mott The Hoople (1969)—3½