Funks Realm: 1/2 a Hoople post...

Monday, January 12, 2009

1/2 a Hoople post...

Mott the Hoople was a remarkable band in the early 70’s. Back then and even until Mott Live album they gave credit to Ian Hunter for piano/organ and vocals. Mick Ralphs, also keyboard and backing vocals. Mick Ronson for kick-ass guitar. And Paul Rogers for guitar and vocals. Dale Griffin on drums. Ariel Bender, Verden Allen, Overend Watts and Morgan Fisher were also members for certain reasons at different times.

I look up Mott the Hoople on Wiki [here] and I see absolutely no mention of Paul Rogers. I remember the stories, know the facts and even saw him play with them. On the original version of Ready for love credits were given as follows “Ralphs/Rogers”.

I don’t know or care why things end up being presented the way they do sometimes but they do and the only reason I mentioned it is that Ready for Love is a beautiful song. I had (still have somewhere on one of my drives) both versions of that song on vid. One is in 1972 with Paul Rogers & Mott, the other would have been around 1979, Paul Rogers again singing it with his band Bad Company. I used to play both back-to-back for family and friends to show the comparison of an artist first starting out basically and then next the same artist well seasoned and a little more professional. Both versions are beautiful, the 1972 version is very rare and hard to find (hence the reason I lost my copy, I backed it up and stored it away in case my drive crashed. So now I forget where it is), when I find them I’ll post them together.

Anyway…. The story goes as this from an interview with Mick Ronson (I think). Rogers and Ralphs started drinking together and hanging out together quite a bit all of a sudden. Then he says “I should have seen it coming or known something was up but then out of the blue they both came in and announced that they were leaving Mott to form their own band. Really never gave us any warning”. This was in response to why the band made so many changes right at their peak. That was also the reason for so many band member shifts.

Ralphs & Rogers went on to form the band Free, which (at the insistence of the recording executives) was later renamed Bad Company.

This post aint about none of that stuff tho so if you read that crap I’m sorry because this post is about the “other” ½ a Hoople.

Yup, this here post is about Mick Ronson and his leading/assistant, back-up lead singer Mister Ian Hunter. It’s more about Ronsons Guitar style, I just heard he had passed away during one of my busiest work era's in my life (I think about 10 years flew by me in about a week & a half)

Here they are folks Mister Ronson and Ian Hunter…

Ian Hunter & Mick Ronson "Angeline"
(this is the song that prompted this whole dayum post)