Ian Hunter has a new solo album coming out next week, and I couldn't be more delighted.
Chances are you don't know Ian Hunter by name, but you do know his songs. Although he never sold quite as many records as his most obvious influences—Dylan, the Stones, and David Bowie—or for that matter, even as his one-time Mott The Hoople bandmate Mick Ralphs did with Bad Company—Hunter's songs occupy a unique and permanent place in rock history.
The group Great White, for example, made a career out of covering Hunter tunes like "Once Bitten, Twice Shy" in the eighties (much the same way as their metal comrades Quiet Riot did with Slade songs like "Cum On Feel The Noize"). Even Barry Manilow hopped on the Ian Hunter bandwagon at one point, when he had a hit with a cover of the rare Hunter ballad "Ships." Latter-day fans like Joe Strummer and Mick Jones have also cited Mott The Hoople as a primary influence on the Clash.
But for those of us who love the man behind the curls and the shades, Ian Hunter's greatest days remain those he spent as frontman and primary songwriter for the great unsung seventies rock band Mott The Hoople. I once wrote a review of their great album Mott, where I described them as how Dylan might sound if he were backed by the Rolling Stones. The review so inspired a few members of my Journalism 101 class, that they formed an ad hoc fanclub called "Friends Of Mott The Hoople." Funny shit.
Later, when I was writing for another school paper in college, I got a chance to meet Hunter when I heard that area DJ Norm Gregory would be interviewing him for the afternoon show on local rock station KZOK. I immediately phoned Gregory and asked if I could come down and hang out, to which he agreed.
When Gregory was done with him, I sat Ian Hunter down in the lobby at the station and did my own interview. My greatest recollection of this was the way that Hunter chain-smoked throughout our conversation, and stacked his butts up end to end on the table (there was no ashtray). He also never once removed those trademark shades of his.
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