GUY STEVENS is a man one should learn to trust. Every musical entity, record, group, or individual performer he's ever recommended me to, has turned out to be a gas, But Mott the Hoople just didn't sound like they'd make it. I mean 'Mott the Hoople'! But there was never any pressure piled on the Sparkly cranium to see and hear the band - I happened upon them by chance whilst visiting the Stevens' abode in quest of over-due record reviews, And they were nice affable sort of chaps. I thought little more of it.
Then with typical efficiency, a white label of M-the-H s gramophone record sped thru the post and onto the IT doormat. 'Strange record' I thought and then got on with writing my column for the 'Isle of Ely Weekly Examiner'.
Implosion, many weeks and several memory lapses later, was the clincher. The dynamic GS was darting about, positively ebullient in his enthusiasm for his group and Jeff Dexter confirmed my suspicions that a good time was about to be had by all, 'Fucking amazing band' were I think his exact words. And indeed they were. Of course, I should have listened when GS first told me and got into them immediately. 'Better late than never', is what I always whine when I'm groveling.
THE ONLY ROCK AND ROLL BAND OF THE SEVENTIES
Firstly, Mott the Hoople are a rock n' roll band. Let there be no mistake about that. They play rugged, almost crude rhythms and they manage to' emanate I the almost ecstatic naivety of the Terry Denes, Johnny Gentles and Grant Thunderers (I bet you don't remember HIM) of the late fifties, But their nature, the actual basic structures of their numbers are more complex, more inspired, than those really dreadful monstrosities that Tin Pan Alley churned out for so long. They have brought a tenuous (and probably transitory) sophistication to rock and roll and in doing so have transcended the acid/progressive rock of the late sixties and become the only rock and roll band of the seventies currently around.
Pete Dalton makes the observation in his review of the Blind Faith album (in this issue) that the music of BF probably marks the end of a tradition. Mott the Hoopie may well mark the threshold of a new era that some chronicler of early seventies music will regard as a 'Pop Tradition'.
Don't get the impression from my adulating scribings that M the H are playing technically brilliant music of supreme and undefinable originality, 'cause they ain't!
'Anyone who says that they aren't influenced by someone else is a liar', said pianist/singer/songwriter Ian Hunter, 'We've got lots of influences and what's more we're proud of them'.
The most immediate influence that anyone who has heard or will hear their album is that of Dylan. Two tracks 'Half Moon Bay' and 'If the World Saluted You' - contain what trendy turd heads will instantly regard as Dylan cribs. The former, it's true, has elements of 'Blowin' in the Wind' and 'Like a Rolling Stone' attached to it and Ian's voice is quite similar to that of Dylan. But is that his fault?
'To be quite honest', he explained, 'I never write any song with Dylan consciously in mind. But because I love some of the stuff that he wrote around the 'Blonde on Blonde' / 'Highway 61' era, I suppose I must be affected by him'.
Personally speaking (as usual) I find what traits of Dylan there are in Mott the Hoople's music, pleasantly nostalgic.
It's like my favourite bits of Dylan have been cut out and preserved in a thick, spicy sauce, And there are other influences, or affectations, that are as welcome as rubber pound notes. There's a lively portion of 'Half Moon Bay' where Ian and organist Verden Allen create a slow, tremulous, musical tapestry that reeks of Procol Harum (one of Guy Stevens' fave rave groups, I note - mine too!) and a prize Fisher/Brooker musical rap. I mentioned this to Mick Ralphs, guitarist and vocalist with the group, who kicked my head in and then said, 'Well again, there's this business of copying, I feel that everything we write and play is musically valid. I don't think of us as copying anybody but I should mention that the group in its present form has only been together about 3 months and so our initial writing efforts are, well, affected by our greatest influences. We're still a very new group you see, after we've been together a bit longer I think Mott the Hoople's music will get more involved. We won't lose our 'influences' as such, they'll just be expressed in a different way, perhaps. Procol Harum are actually a fantastic group, playing such incredible stuff without any fuss or bother'.
I mentioned that I considered Procol Harum as one of the few composers of modern classical music. Totally timeless, which is ultimately the test. Their music is classical in concept, if not in execution. Ian agreed, 'Yeah, they just sit there and play it. They don't ask you to listen, they just sit there and lay it all down. Same goes for Winwood, of course, and for the same reasons'.
Mention of Winwood prompts the information from Mick that he used to jam with Jim Capaldi and Dave Mason. After a hazardous discourse which ended up with us comparing puns about the Flying Capaldi Brothers, he explained that it was Jim who introduced Ian to the group. Ian joined the group after they'd left Hereford, although he'd lived nearby in Shrewsbury until moving to Northampton and then London. 'It was quite funny really', he said, 'the band were looking for a pianist and I'm basically a bass player. So Guy said, 'Can you do anything'?' and I thought, well C, F and G is about the safest thing and so I did 'Laugh at Me'' - the Sonny and Cher number which rejoices in a Mott the Hoople arrangement on their album.
Ian continued: 'Then there was a gap of a few weeks and one day when we were in the studio Guy came in and, well you know what he's like, he said 'Try 'Laugh'at Me', we did it, sort of a second time. I thought at the time it was released it had a lot more to it than Bono put into it'.
And I thought that all Sonny Bono's productions were over-produced and relied too heavily on Mr. Spector for ideas, so I told him so. Yeah, that's right, but all his songs, I mean the tunes that were very strong ones and they adapt well to changes of tempo. We do 'Laugh at Me' much slower than the original version, for instance'.
And so they do, a thundering great crescendo of typically Hoopleish sound walls, punctuated by some amazingly frenetic guitar work from Mick (obviously' a force to be reckoned with in talk of future Supa Dupa Groups) after a nice, casual treatment of the rest of the number.
The group's studious interest in some of the musically un-recognised greats goes several stages further than Procol Harum and Sonny and Cher. Mick Ralphs' favourite guitarists are people like James Burton who played on early Rick Nelson hits ('He's so incredibly fluid, sort of fast but natural and I gather Rick Nelson's making a comeback now so we might hear some more of him') and some of the more poppy country guitar pickers. ('Some of the old guys who used to back the Everly Brothers were technically brilliant, but no one used to bother listening to them, you know').
Ian is a great fan of Steve Winwood's as he implied earlier and the whole group were digging Buffalo Springfield before Neil Young became the darling of the import record shops. This interest, which is obviously deep-rooted, in styles and forms that were never really latched onto by anyone at the time, is already showing in their music. If Mick and Ian (not forgetting the omnipresent GS!) continue to develop this interest and move on to the groups and writers of the late sixties, one wonders which artists they'll acquire a penchant for now and how it'll affect their music?
Although they do an instrumental version of the Who's 'Can't Explain' on the album ('That number developed into a jam which lasted about 15 minutes, it was the best thing I've ever played', said Ian. 'We cut the last bit off and stuck it on the last track of the album, calling it 'Wrath & Wroll!') no one has really arranged any of Townshend's later compositions. Think what the Hoople could do with 'I Can See For Miles' or 'I'm.a Boy'.
The Kink's material bears distinct similarities to Sonny Bono's work, though it's more sophisticated lyrically, whilst being simpler as far as arrangements go. What about a Hoople 'Waterloo Sunset' or 'See My Friend" (which was an incredible but sadly ignored pop milestone.)
The thing is that Mott the Hoople are capable of doing it - and making it valid - unlike their American contemporaries who grab foreign material (i.e. British) and often emasculate it. Kooper's arrangement of 'Dear Mr. Fantasy' is one ghastly example of this. M-the-H are British and yet, from the comparative quiet of Hereford, they've been able to watch the British and American influences on British music, from a detached viewpoint. They have a unique opportunity to surpass Vanilla Fudge at their own game, as far as arranging and writing goes.
BIRMINGHAM USA, AND BIRMINGHAM GB - BOTH WITH THE SAME PROBLEMS
Another sparkling Mott the Hoople opus is 'Road to Birmingham' one of Ian's numbers which boasts a delicate set of lyrics regarding our old friend, racial prejudice. 'The song is about Birmingham USA as well as our Birmingham' explained Ian, 'they've got the same problems with their black people. I know it's been said before but it still hasn't been said enough: I think it's scandalous that we should set up offices in the Commonwealth countries to try and attract people to come here to live, then treat 'em like shit when they get here. I just can't stand racial prejudice and there seems to be a lot of it in the Midlands. I'm not saying that, in certain cases, it's not without cause, I'm just saying that I can't stand it'.
Another thing that the group can't stand is the crookedness of the business which they find themselves inside. 'There's very few people who you can really trust' reflected Mick, 'that's why we're so happy about having Guy with us. In actual fact It's like having another member in the band. He has such tremendous enthusiasm for what we play, it was a bit overwhelming at first.
'Island Records are good to be with, as well. They're like an island, in fact, amongst everyone else in the business. They do things their own way, always having faith in the group's music, rather in just their potential as a 'product'. It was a bit hard to get Guy to hear us at first, he wasn't too knocked out by our tapes, but eventually we got him to hear us at a small rehearsal studio and he really dug us. The very next day he had us recording demos and not long after that we made the album. That's how a record company should work - putting the music first!'
'Yeah', bassist 'Overend' Watts ruptured the conversation, 'and we recorded most of the numbers in one take! They couldn't believe it and nor could we. It was just so easy with Guy and Andrew (Johns) because they knew exactly where our music was at. In October we're doing our second album, it's fantastic that Island are prepared to put us back in the studios so quickly, taking down each stage of development we go through.'
The rest of the group, that is the only one not mentioned so far, is Buffin, who plays drums. They were all in different groups back in Hereford (with the exception of Ian). Sometimes they played together in bands but eventually, as they left various groups or bands broke up, they found themselves together. So the casual friendships of the past three years became a musical partnership.
What has been produced in a few months holds incredible promise for the future. Obviously Island, the company who signed Spooky Tooth (or Art, as they were at that stage), King Crimson and Traffic as virtual unknowns, realises this. Their first album is released this month and will not fail to impress you, assuming you possess a pair of ears.
IMPLOSION - WE JUST DIDN'T BELIEVE PLACES LIKE THAT EXISTED
The things that are impressing them are worth noting, for a 'foreigners eye view' of the London scene is always objective and valuable for its detached viewpoint - if nothing else. They dig Implosion.
'We just didn't believe places like that existed', said Ian, 'we all wanted to live there, it was so beautiful after playing pub ballrooms for three years.' They dig London generally, in fact: 'There's a lot of people here, groups that is, that we've always admired and that we'd never see in Hereford. Sometimes though, it's nice to go back there; London can become a bit too hectic.' 'There's no sheep here!' interjected Buffin, 'Anyway, I find that I can write better there.'
The only point that really remains is 'Will you Mott the Hoople?' Will you, indeed.