STONES THAT ROLL: ROLL AWAY THE STONE/MOTT THE HOOPLE

Of course I love the Stones. And I could wax lyrical about them forever, having remained, largely, a fan, through hip, happening and happened, back again into the same cycle, repeated every decade or so. But, it being not so long after Easter, and that stone having been rolled, and to celebrate that they too are still on the road, likewise down to a hardcore trio, plus latecomers, there is always room for Mott.
Ian Hunter is 80 in June, another good reason to celebrate this surprisingly long lived band. With a charismatic stage presence, he has always been one of the more memorable front men in rock music. The band possibly better thought of a series as bands as, irrespective of surprisingly few line up-changes, there were three distinct stages.

Stage 1 was a solid meat and potatoes rock band, unafraid to embrace soul and country influences, blessed with a singer adept at channeling a Dylanesque vibe and vocal to proceedings. However, being a cult underdog favourite did not make for massive sales, their 2nd and 3rd records failing to make much inroad, arguably as they became progressively less electric and more acoustic. It wasn't working, even in the never more credible Island records roster.

Luckily, one David Jones, better known as David Bowie, was a fan of their chutzpah, offering them a song, 'Suffragette City'. That I would have loved to hear, but they turned him down: 'not good enough'(!!) Undeterred he sent a second, immediately gaining them a massive, and deserved hit. And a massive change in style. From long-haired hippies, whilst keeping the hair, they became Gods of Glam, all bacofoil, feathers and tinsel. I can't say I cared for the image, preferring also the older songs, Dudes excepted, but, hell, it was just great to see one of 'my' bands on Top of the Pops. Link to the earlier muse, guitarist Mick Ralphs, jumped ship as this success took hold, leaving in 1973, although he is playing on the later released featured song of this post. The irony might be that nothing more of him was ever heard again, but the band he left to join was Bad Company, playing, arguably, a stripped down version of the Mott part 1 template, doing rather well therewith. Bizarrely, his replacement, Ariel Bender, not his real name, was of similar blues-rock stock, as Luther Grosvenor, ex of Spooky Tooth, transforming himself into and for the designated image.

The hits couldn't last forever, and didn't. In truth, Mott were unlikely popstars, and both too old and too ugly to cut the drift of glam to disco. Erstwhile Bowie guitar-slinger Mick Ronson took over briefly, as Bender/Grosvenor left, ahead of the band formally calling it quits. Ronson and Hunter took up the mantle, a pairing from heaven, Ronson producing many of Hunter's run of solo albums, playing guitar and, on the road, frequently billed as the Hunter-Ronson band.

(I never 'got' this song, 'Cleveland Rocks', above, querying why and how two lads from Oswestry and Hull, respectively, could and would be singing about a city that I still have no idea as to where the f it is. I later learnt it was written as England Rocks, the name change being to endear more with US audiences, with whom they were huge. The lyrics fit better with England, IMHO, but I would say that, wouldn't I?)

Phase three for Mott was reunion time, of which there have been a few, 2009, 2013 and 2018 onward.  The first two of these concentrated on the original line up, as in their 1972 song, 'Ballad of Mott the Hoople'. Therefore not necessarily the more successful glam rock model, but certainly of more appeal to the die-hard fans. Partly in recognition of the tolls of time and age on that quintet, not to say their fanbase, the more recent line-ups have been more a reprise of the later years, more keyboard focussed, courtesy the dapper charms of Morgan Fisher, and bringing back Bender. Billed as Mott the Hoople 74, they have just recently been to a town near you. Including, yes, Cleveland. (OK, the clip below isn't Ohio, but looks to be Hunter, Bender, Fisher.)

Happy birthday, Ian. And it might be time to dig out again his epistle to the life on the road lifestyle of nearly half a century ago, 'Diary of a Rock 'n' Roll Star'. Well worth a read.

Get stoned!

HAPPY/UNHAPPY COUPLES: JACK & DIANE/JOHN COUGAR (MELLENCAMP)

Is there a more archetypal US couple than Jack and Diane? Well, of course, the answer is an unreserved yes, but, ignoring that, this couple have maintained an ongoing virtual life, come what may, in the nearly 37 years since John Mellencamp brought them first to our attention. Hell, he wasn't even John Mellencamp then, being still the John Cougar some manager thought sounded cooler than his given name. But ain't it a great song?

The song very nearly didn't make it, Mellencamp having dumped it, being unable to get his band to give the accompaninent he heard it as needing. It took Mick Ronson, yes that Mick Ronson, to insist he give it another crack, this time with Ronson on additional guitar. The iconic hand claps shouldn't even be there, being initially just part of the click track to facilitate the arrangement. But it just sounded better with than without. And should you still be pondering the Ronno/Mellencamp linkage, most odd in retrospect, the Spider from Mars and the midwest journeyman roots artist, remember then that John, then Johnny, Cougar was being pushed as a slightly Bowie-esque retro-rocker in the mid 70s, and that the aforementioned manager was Tony DeFries, the famous main man of MainMan, who also looked after Bowie. Anyhow, this song was many years after the DeFries management, but I am sure that's where the pair of them first met. Ronson subsequently invented himself as a go-to guitarist for anyone from Bob Dylan to Ian Hunter, ditching the spandex and stack heels along the way, whilst DeFries ditched Cougar to the no lesser delights of Rod Stewart's management team and Billy Gaff.

The song did well. Number 1 in 1982 for 4 weeks, still his biggest hit. It has also given birth to a number of references across music and film, as the names Jack and Diane have almost come to be generic of just about any young couple in their struggle to stay together. It was certainly the first I had heard of the artist, his earlier US hits having failed to translate across this pond. And I heard no more of him for some time, despite ongoing success in the US. I guess my tastes had always been a tad rootsier than the charts, and I was developing a taste for Steve Earle, as he ploughed his country into a rock furrow. What I didn't know was that (by now named) John Cougar Mellencamp was traversing the opposite direction, in 1987 they each perhaps halfway in the transition. Earle produced 'Guitar Town' in 86 and, a year later, Mellencamp produced 'The Lonesome Jubilee', still, for me, his masterpiece.

Of course he has made many a record since then, most of it in a similar vein, much of it to a high standard. A heart attack slowed him a little in the 90s, yet ironically boosted his status. By his return to performance he was being greeted as a similar icon to the working man as Springsteen, and would appear on stage with the Bob Dylans, Willie Nelsons and Neil Youngs of this world. And so he has continued, increasingly a politicised performer, albeit with views fairly constantly to the left of centre, no small critic of the current regime. (Indeed, I hadn't realised until this day that he was, in fact, one of the founding fathers, with Young and Nelson, of Farm Aid.)

So what of Jack and Diane? Well, they made a (brief) reappearance in the 1998 song, 'Eden is Burning', but the song is, presumably, so allegorical as to give no personal update. But I'll bet he worries who they voted for, last time around. But he still plays it.

Here.

Spies and Secrets: F.B.I.

Ian Hunter: F.B.I.
[purchase the album at a very high price]
[purchase just the song, at a reasonable price]

Growing up, as a good liberal child in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the FBI was the enemy. Under the leadership of director J. Edgar Hoover, and after his death, the FBI was instrumental in trying to suppress the civil rights and anti-war movements, discriminate against gays, and generally act as a tool of the “Establishment.” I personally have no problem with enforcing the law, if done fairly and within the bounds of the law—and so I have no problem with the FBI’s anti organized crime or terrorism work, for example—but with respect to the civil rights and antiwar stuff, they definitely crossed the line. Which may be why, in part, it wasn’t hard to watch The Americans, and find myself sorta pulling for the Russians, even though watching the show demonstrated that they were also pretty horrible.

It is interesting, though, that now it is the “leader” of the American government himself who is the biggest critic of the FBI, despite the fact that he appointed its director. And let me be clear—former director Comey deserved to be fired by whichever candidate won the 2016 election because of the way he botched the handling of the investigations of both candidates. But to have done so for the explicit reason of impeding the investigation into alleged conspiracy with Russia to influence the election is simply wrong, and probably illegal. So, it is amusing that these days, it seems like it is the liberal Democrats who seem to be bigger fans of the FBI than the Republicans.

I doubt that the FBI is that big a deal in England, much as the band The Shadows was never that big a deal here. (How’s that for a clunky segue?) But in England, they were huge, with multiple hits, and lead guitarist Hank Marvin influenced pretty much every great English/Canadian/Australian guitarist, including Richard Thompson, Andy Summers, Brian May, Steve Howe, George Harrison, Neil Young, Tommy Emmanuel, Eric Clapton, Pete Townshend, Mark Knopfler, Peter Frampton, and Jeff Beck. Just to name a few.

Although they started out as the backup band for Cliff Richard, maybe the poster child for “huge in England, mostly unknown in the US,” the Shadows went on to fame in their own right, mostly as an instrumental band. “F.B.I.,” released in 1961, was not their biggest hit, but it did hit #6 on the UK charts (and never charted in the US.)

Ian Hunter opened his 1980 live album, Welcome to the Club, with a cover of the song, featuring his band’s guitarist, Mick Ronson, who has also been quoted as saying that Marvin and The Shadows were influences on him. (Both Ronson and Marvin appeared on Roger Daltrey’s solo album, One of the Boys, for what that’s worth). It is a great way to kick off a great live album that includes a bunch of Hunter’s and Mott the Hoople’s best songs (and some other interesting covers). I remember playing this album more than a few times at WPRB.

The aforementioned Brian May also covered the song on a 1996 tribute album to Marvin and The Shadows, as have others.

LEFTOVERS: MAR* SONGS: MARCH RAIN

Curiously, this has almost the same title as the last song I wrote about in this theme, albeit in translation, confirming, if ever needed, that March is one wet mother. It is also my birthday month and my unreliable and unravelling neurones told me I had celebrated last year by attending one Michael Chapman in concert. O, so wrong, it was 5 months later, but it is raining today so that's as much link as I need.

Michael Chapman is a remarkable fella, and one who is experiencing a bit of a late bloom, courtesy some heavy duty patronage from americans half and less his age. The fact that his style of guitar play is back in vogue hinders no little, the likes of (the late) Jack Rose and William Tyler taking the template and twisting it both back and forward. OK, it was earlier visionaries like John Fahey who first feted this structure, the confusingly to me entitled American Primitive, but it took, IMHO, bluff yorkshireman Chapman to give it song. Literally.

He has been around and on the road forever. Like so many musicians from the 60s UK, he was a product of Art School, actually teaching for a while before the lure of a penurious existence on the fringes of popular culture became too strong. The story goes that he was too broke to pay the entrance fee into a Cornwall Folk Club, offering instead to play, staying then for the entire season. A record contract materialised and he came to the ear of the iconic John Peel, tastemaker DJ to decades of pale young men. His first records were produced by Elton John producer, Gus Dudgeon, with the exquisite  orchestral arrangements, as here above, of Paul Buckmaster, who perhaps deserves a leftover himself.  
Early records tended toward the pastoral, primarily acoustic guitar to the forefront, with his never more z sibilant style of singing s's, as here on his 'greatest hit', 1970s Postcards of Scarborough.

Like the electric guitar? Sort of familiar? It's Mick Ronson, prior to Bowie, with erstwhile Steeleye Span stalwart Rick Kemp on bass. Following this early taste of success, he later pursued a rockier road, albeit often revisiting his earlier material, like Wrecked Again. Less satisfactory to my ears than the earlier studio version, he was nonetheless popular on the college gig circuit until a massive heart attack in 1990 seemed to beckon the end of his career. Having continued to be a guitar tutor alongside his playing, it was to this he retreated. His catalogue contains a number of discs for the budding virtuoso to brush up their licks, but he was also slowly, very slowly, climbing back onto the performance ladder.

It was probably galling to have Sonic Youth turn up at one such low-key performance, especially as they credited him with having inspired their own ouevre of feedback frenzy. Millstone Grit, from 1971, particularly inspired Thurston Moore, with the middle and last sections of New York Ladies giving the clue, say from about 4.50 onward, and again, more powerfully, at 7.49. Here's an interview between the two of them.

Now, as an elder statesman of guitar music, connecting John Fahey, with whom he has played and Steve Gunn, who has played with him, he has had the accolade of all-star tribute album, featuring both old friends from his past like Kemp and Kemp's ex, Maddy Prior, to Lucinda Williams, by way of the aforementioned Moore and Tyler, and the mercurial talent of Hiss Golden Messenger. I commend it. But even more I commend 50, his last release. A mix of new and of re-interpretations, this is a staggering piece of work. And no, no link, you can find the songs yourself. But I will leave you with an instrumental version of March Rain from 2015's Fish, together with his own version of many of the events skimmed over above.

March Rain 1970 and 2015

Two Words: Somewhere Rocks

Ian Hunter: England Rocks  
Ian Hunter: Cleveland Rocks
[purchase England Rocks]
[purchase Cleveland Rocks]

One of the advantages of a theme like this is that it allows me to write about pretty much any artist I can think of, because the odds are pretty high that I can find a song from that artist with a Two Word title.

It turns out that the great Ian Hunter has never been featured in the long history of this blog (although he was mentioned in a piece about his fellow member of Mott the Hoople, Mick Ralphs). After that band broke up, Hunter started a solo career. Although his self-titled first solo album was successful, his next two, which did not feature guitarist Mick Ronson, were not.

In 1977 Hunter released a single, “England Rocks,” in England, with the B-side, a song from his third album. It was very much in the glam-rock tradition of Mott the Hoople, featuring a prominent piano part, and lyrics that appeared to relate to the rise of punk (safety pins!) and references to his grandfather’s badges from World War II. I first heard the song at WPRB, from a compilation album, Shades of Ian Hunter: The Ballad of Ian Hunter and Mott the Hoople, which was released in 1979.

Also in 1979, Hunter released a new solo album, You're Never Alone with a Schizophrenic, which featured a reworked version of the song, titled “Cleveland Rocks.” Now, the song begins with a clip from Cleveland’s Alan Freed, the legendary DJ, the piano has been replaced by a synthesizer, and Mick Ronson is the guitarist. The lyrics are changed a bit—the grandfather in the original was a “villain,” now he’s a “rocker” and the WWII-era badges the singer wore have morphed into records he played.

Overall, I kind of like the “England” version better—it is less slick and a bit rougher around the edges. And I find the synth in the “Cleveland” version annoying. Interestingly, Hunter insisted that he originally wrote the song for Cleveland, but changed it to England, because his record company wouldn’t release it in that way in the US. Based on the lyrics, though, I’m not sure I’m buying that story, but what I think really doesn’t matter, does it?

“Cleveland Rocks” became probably Hunter’s most well-known solo song, especially in Cleveland, where legendary rock station WMMS would kick off the weekend by playing the song every Friday at 6. Cleveland mayor Dennis Kucinich gave Hunter the keys to the city in 1979. It was adopted by the Cleveland Indians and Cavaliers as a theme, and Hunter even performed the song in the pregame ceremonies of Game 3 of the 2007 NBA Finals in Cleveland.

A cover of “Cleveland Rocks,” by the Presidents of the United States of America, was used in the credits of seasons 3-7 the Drew Carey Show, which took place in the self-proclaimed “Rock ‘n’ Roll Capital of the World," and covers of the song by other artists were used in later seasons. The Ian Hunter original also was used in one episode of the show. This exposure helped to bring the song to the attention of a new audience.

Hunter continues to record well-received solo albums, and to tour, as a headliner, occasionally with a re-formed Mott the Hoople, and once as a member of Ringo Starr and his All-Starr Band.

Darkness: Only After Dark

 

   OK: Here's a tune you'll want to play for anyone who comes near your computer today.

   After leaving David Bowie's band, the great glam rocking guitarist Mick Ronson released his first solo album, Slaughter on 10th Avenue, in February of 1974. The album features a cover of Elvis Presley's "Love Me Tender" and the instrumental title track with Aladdin Sane pianist Mike Garson on the ivories, and one stunning song that outdoes anything Bowie put out in 1974: "Only After Dark".



The album reached Top 10 in the UK.