For a time between '72 and '74 Mott the Hoople was the greatest rock 'n' roll band in the world, combining underlying '50s Chuck/Little Richard/Jerry Lee impulses, Dylanesque wordplay, massive British Invasion power chords, a glammy pre-punk sensibility, and a compulsion to accurately chronicle the rock 'n' roll lifestyle with the force of MYTH.
A remastered version, with two bonus tracks, of their '74 Greatest Hits package has just been released by Legacy, and while it unfortunately doesn't do the band justice (overemphasizing the band's pop and ballad side, shortchanging ballsy rock, and with truncated versions of key songs "Sweet Jane" and "One of the Boys"), it does remind us of how great they were, and points us to releases that do fully satisfy.
With the success of the great trilogy of All the Young Dudes, Mott, and The Hoople in '72, '73 and '74 successively, it is easy to forget the band's muscular, sinewy foundation was hard-won over three long years of slogging the journeyman British rock 'n' roll highway, and four promising but spotty albums that drummed up much UK attention but scarce sales.
The band came together in 1968 as Silence in Hereford, England with Mick Ralphs (lead guitar, vocal), Verden Allen (organ), Overend Pete Watts (bass), and Dale "Buffin" Griffin (drums). The band added Stan Tippens as vocalist in early '69 and signed with Island (Atlantic in the U.S.), recording their first record in London with producer Guy Stevens, whose first move was to change the band's name to Mott the Hoople after an obscure Willard Manus novel. By summer Ian Hunter had replaced Tippens as vocalist.
This period of occasional gems rising above mediocrity is best represented by the now hard-to-find collection Rock and Roll Queen, which contains Mick Ralph's two greatest recorded moments as singer-songwriter, the monumental title track, and the unprecedentedly dynamic "Thunderbuck Ram," which veers between gossamer delicacy and unleashed guitar fury.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Mark Saleski
thanks a lot eric.
i've been trying to be good....savin' up money before i go on vacation.
now i've gotta stop by the danged store on the way home!
2 - Eric Olsen
Thanks Mark, I am pleased to hear that I suck in this manner.
3 - Marty Thau
I usually agree with Eric's readings but in this case I'm sorry to say I don't. Mott were a 'nice' band but that's about it. To call them the greatest band in the world for a period of time is off the mark. Eric, if you feel this way, you must like Queen, too.
4 - Mark Saleski
hey, wait...I like Queen!! ;-)
5 - Eric Olsen
Marty, Marty, Marty, Mott the Hoople was the anti-Queen: totally unpretentious, organic, working class but literate, centered on songs not sonics, rock 'n' roll not arena rock, MUCH more like the Dolls than like Queen.
6 - Marty Thau
Eric, Eric, Eric -- I didn't say Mott were anything musically like Queen. Aside from a few great songs, Mott were basically a pretty boring live group. Queen were beyond boring. I don't think that when people think back and refelct on the great bands of that era that either one stands out.
7 - Eric Olsen
My favorites from that era ('72-'74) are Roxy Music, Stones, Dolls, Bowie, Springsteen, Mott the Hoople - I think they hold up extremely well.
8 - Eric Olsen
I like the first Queen album a lot, but it was downhill from there.
9 - Marty Thau
I agree for the most part but this all started when you wrote that Mott were the greatest band in the world for a period of time between '72 & '74. Sorry, but I don't buy that. Like I said, they were a 'nice' band. That's as far as I can go. Great bands must be great 'live', too. Mott weren't.
10 - Hazy Dave
To this music consumer, a band's records are far more important in judgment of their greatness than their live show.
My chances of seeing a band in concert anywhere near their peak are a lot smaller than somebody who lives in NYC or LA in any case. (And even a Springsteen concert seen from the back half of an arena is a lot less impressive than the raves written by occupants of the VIP seats would lead one to believe.)
It'd take me some research to find another rock and roll band that (arguably) put out their three best albums between 1972 and 1974. Slade? Black Sabbath? Heh.
BTW, I'd recommend "Backsliding Fearlessly" on Rhino as a superior collection of songs from Mott's four Atlantic (Island UK) LP's. Good as they are, nothing on the Columbia albums can match cranking "Death May Be Your Santa Claus" up to eleven.
11 - Eric Olsen
I like that one too, Dave, no beating that title - it's also on Rock and Roll Queen
12 - Rodney Welch
Eric, I totally agree that Mott is a great album that holds up to limitless re-listens, mainly because the songs were all over the map -- and that's a good thing. It's a very diverse album that is never about one thing. "All the Way to Memphis" and "Ballad of Mott the Hoople" are, of course, personal songs about the bands travels and travails, but "Whizz Kid," "Violence," and "Hymn for the Dudes" are all tuned in to some other vibe, and then there's that blissful and beautiful closer "I Wish I Was Your Mother," which perfectly capsulizes a certain kind of obsessive relationship. It seems, with that list of songs, one should be complaining about incoherence or lack of focus; instead, the picture you get is of a band with a great batch of songs and loads of talent to burn. Easily one of the very great albums of the 1970s.
13 - Eric Olsen
Glad you agree Rodney, I see it as the center of this great trilogy that frays a bit on either end but is without flaw in the middle. After thinking so much about this yesterday, I had dreams about Mott songs all night last night - talk about ear worms.
14 - Tim Hall
It'd take me some research to find another rock and roll band that (arguably) put out their three best albums between 1972 and 1974. Slade? Black Sabbath? Heh.
Uriah Heep?
Although I thought the early 70s were the golden age of rock (before Punk ruined everything), I'm hard pressed to name many bands whose best years were 72 to 74. Led Zep peaked in '71, Deep Purple's best years were '70 to '72, other bands like Thin Lizzy didn't hit their stride till about '75.
15 - Eric Olsen
Bowie was about at his best then
16 - Dennis Lockhart
It's difficult to believe no one has had anything to say about Mott here for over two years. Mott, along with Status Quo and Free, are my favorites. Never saw Free or Mott, but I saw Status Quo supporting Slade--whom they sliced and diced--at Santa Monica Civic in l973. Mott and Free both had dreary early albums, with noted exceptions: Tnunderbuck Ram--why doesn't some symphony orchestra blow down the walls with a version of this?--and Walking with A Mountain make Mad Shadows worthwhile. Rock and Roll Queen is an essential album. One of the Boys is monstrous, but their Sweet Jane owes more to Andy Williams than Lou Reed. Hard to believe they're on the same album.I miss Mott, Status and Free....where have all the good ones gone, indeed.
17 - Eric Olsen
thanks Dennis! I agree almost completely with your assessments of Mott and Free and love them both still - I really like Mott's "Sweet Jane" even though it's so different. I think Free's Heartbreaker is a real underrated classic, by the way. And I still can't believe what Mick Ralphs turned into - astonishing
18 - Rodney Welch
I must be getting old. As soon as I saw the title of this article in the Comments section, I clicked on it, read it enthusiastically, and was compiling in my head a list of nice things to say about Eric Olsen's wonderful dual abilitities for cohesive history and cogent commentary, and my own abiding love for the masterpiece that is Mott. Then I find out I already commented, because I read it two years ago and forgot. Oh well. As I think Richard Wagner once said of Natalie Wood, Still a great piece, even on the second go-round.
19 - Eric Olsen
thanks Rodney, I forget things from two months ago, let alone two years!
Wagner got some hot babes for an opera dude, or do you mean Robert?
20 - Rodney Welch
Yes, dammit, I mean Robert. That makes two examples of forgetting today. And it isn't even 9 a.m.
21 - Eric Olsen
"What kind of Wood doesn't float?" and all of that
22 - Vern Halen
Now we got something to talk about. Free & Mott - two of the all time great lost English classic rockers (Badfinger completes the triple crown). Heartbreaker is indeed the greatest forgotten classic bar none, with Brain Capers running a close second.
Hoople has a CD reissue of Two Miles from Heaven, their rarities compilation for if you can't afford the box set. And Mott the Hoople Live has been reissued as a 2 CD set, with the complete New YOrk & HAmmersmith shows. It's great to hear Ariel Bender go mental on Walking with a Mountain while the Hammersmith staff attempts to lower the curtain on the encore. A must have!
23 - Eric Olsen
great recommendations Vern, thanks! And I'm glad you agree about Heartbreaker
24 - Bennett
Thanks to whoever brought this back to the front row. I was a HS freshman when these guys started rocking the west coast, and we loved every minute of it.
I can still hear Ian's depressed/sardonic verses in my head from All The Young Dudes, and the tragedy of All The Way From Memphis is still every guitar player's bad dream.
Thanks for this EO, kudos two years after!
25 - uao
I discovered Mott the Hoople backwards;
In 1981 I saw Ian Hunter do a great set with Mick Ronson on Midnight Special, loaded with songs from his then-current Short Back 'n' Sides album. That led me to check out Ian Hunter, the solo debut, and Welcome to the Club a live double with a lott of Mott the Hoople songs on it.
That's the one that got me interested in All The Young Dudes, Mott, and The Hoople.
I loved all three, particularly Mott, which I became obsessed with.
Then I went to the local dusty used-record basement shop and picked up the then-out-of-print Mad Shadows, Brain Capers, and Wild Life.
They sure did have a lot of great songs; it's a pity the radio only bothers with "All the Young Dudes" which isn't even their song. What about "All The Way From Memphis" or "Drivin' Sister" or "Ballad of Mott" or "Crash Kids" or "Violence" or "Roll Away The Stone"? Those could have been hitworthy too, given a chance.
Side note: I like to collect very offbeat cover versions of songs; one I've always thought was a peculiar choice was Mott the Hoople's version of Melanie's "Lay Down (Candles in the Rain)". Not a masterpiece, but points for unlikeliness.