One of my favorite truisms is this: context is everything.\u00a0 You\u2019d be hard-pressed to find a better illustration of it than All The Young Dudes<\/i>, the album that literally scooped up the ashes of a band and turned them into a phoenix — for awhile yet, anyhow.<\/p>\n
In late 1971, after three years of slugging it out on the road playing rip-roaring live shows to fervent crowds (especially in their British homeland), Mott The Hoople finally managed to capture a taste of their onstage fire with their brilliant fourth studio album Brain Capers<\/i>.\u00a0 But their satisfaction was brutally short-lived as the album stiffed, leaving the road-weary band playing to the same not-as-big-as-they-should-be audiences with steadily diminishing interest from their label.\u00a0 One late evening on the road in March 1972, after an especially uninspiring show in It was meant to be the final curtain, but turned out to be only the end of Act One of this star-crossed group\u2019s three-act melodrama.\u00a0 Act Two opened with a deus ex machina of epic proportions as, upon learning of the band\u2019s demise, rising star and devoted Mott fan David Bowie, preparing at the time to unleash his stupendously successful Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars<\/i> album and tour, offered to give the band a single he\u2019d written and produce the album it would appear on, if only they would stick together.<\/p>\n Really?\u00a0\u00a0 Seriously?\u00a0 Umm\u2026 yeah\u2026 sure! All The Young Dudes<\/i>, the album that was not supposed to be, instead kicked off the band\u2019s too-brief Golden Age.\u00a0 The five Hooplers — Ian Hunter (vocals\/piano), Mick Ralphs (guitar\/vocals), Verden Allen (organ), Overend Watts (bass) and Dale \u201cBuffin\u201d Griffin (drums) \u2013 reassembled in the studio with Bowie and proceeded to turn out the album everyone always knew they had in them, this time with the added spark of Bowie\u2019s active participation.<\/p>\n The disc opens in fine style with one of Mott\u2019s finer covers, transforming Lou Reed\u2019s \u201cSweet Jane\u201d into a lilting, upbeat rocker that cuts right through the sleepy-eyed haze of the Velvet Underground original.\u00a0\u00a0 Next up, \u201cMamma\u2019s Little Jewel\u201d captures the essence of Mott, with Hunter\u2019s dynamic piano, Ralph\u2019s firm riffing and the rhythm section\u2019s sassy thrash pushing the number harder and harder until Bowie himself cuts in with a stuttering, fabulous sax solo —<\/p>\n — which quick-cuts right into Bowie\u2019s gift to the band, the soaring, poignant title tune, which mined the nexus between the group\u2019s rowdy club roots and the emerging glam scene spearheaded by Bowie himself to deliver a sort of metrosexual rock and roll anthem.\u00a0 Bowie\u2019s harmony vocals here surely contributed to the single\u2019s success.<\/p>\n With that, the band dispenses with covers and delivers a powerful set of songs all their own.\u00a0 And while I wouldn\u2019t count \u201cSucker,\u201d \u201cJerkin\u2019 Crocus\u201d or even the well-loved powerhouse \u201cOne Of The Boys\u201d among my very favorite Mott tunes — they would record even better — each is quite strong and showcases the sharp wit and increasing maturity of Hunter\u2019s vocals, as well as the visceral musical impact of this particular unit.<\/p>\n In the last third, organist Allen makes his first appearance on lead vocals on his solo composition \u201cSoft Ground\u201d and acquits himself respectably over a bed of Deep Purple-ey churning hard rock — and then it\u2019s Mick Ralphs\u2019 turn.\u00a0 \u201cReady For Love\u201d is memorable both for the undeniable power of the song and for the way it foretold the band\u2019s eventual disintegration.\u00a0 Heavier, bluesier and more melodramatic than much of the group\u2019s work to that point, it was also singularly unsuited for Hunter\u2019s cheeky, conversational vocal style.\u00a0 In the Mott version, Ralphs trades lead vocals with an audibly uncomfortable Hunter on what ends up feeling like a demo for the better-known Bad Company version, which featured Paul Rodgers wailing over Ralphs\u2019 hammering chords.<\/p>\n The album closes out with \u201cSea Diver,\u201d a concise, sparkling nugget of a Hunter ballad that starts out on solo piano and billows outward halfway through with a pitch-perfect string arrangement and sharp crescendos from the band and Bowie himself on sax once again.\u00a0 Of note is that said string arrangement came courtesy of Bowie\u2019s guitar player Mick Ronson, who would end up with only a cameo in the saga of Mott The Hoople, but would go on to play a major role in Hunter\u2019s subsequent solo career.<\/p>\n All The Young Dudes<\/i> picked Mott up off its keister, dusted off its lapels and sent it on its way.\u00a0 With a hit single and album in hand, the band\u2019s future was finally its own to chart.\u00a0 While the chaos of Act One surely foretold the outcome of Act Two, there was some fine music to be made before the band finally did call it a day. \u00a0For that you can thank superfan David Bowie, the Thin White Duke Of Mott.<\/p>\n [Note: The 2006 Legacy reissue of this album includes seven dynamite bonus tracks, including several demos, two explosive live cuts, and the Bowie-lead-vocals version of \u201cAll The Young Dudes.\u201d\u00a0 If you\u2019re in the market for the album anyway, the Legacy edition is well worth picking up.]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":29826,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[8377],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-41441","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-mott-the-hoople","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41441"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41441\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29826"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=41441"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=41441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}