\u201cIan Hunter, Mick Ralphs, Verden Allen, Overend Watts, Dale (Buffin) Griffin — you just won the rock and roll lottery when man of the hour David Bowie handed you a hit single and produced your new album — what\u2019re you gonna do now?\u201d<\/p>\n
Not that the latter days of Mott The Hoople were much like Disneyland — unless maybe you crossed the roller-coaster effect of Space Mountain with the binge-drinking anarchy of Pirates of the Caribbean — but the above question does come to mind when one considers how predictably every triumph achieved by this band was followed by bitter disappointment of one sort or another.<\/p>\n
Strong sales of the Bowie-produced All The Young Dudes<\/i> ensured Mott could continue after the commercial failure of the nonetheless critically-admired group\u2019s earlier albums.\u00a0 But it seemed as though First to go, after the Dudes<\/i> tour but before the recording of Mott<\/i> began in earnest, was founding keyboardist Verden Allen.\u00a0 The band would record Mott<\/i> as a four-piece, with guitarist Ralphs playing organ and synth where needed in the studio, and keyboardist Morgan Fisher joining up for the subsequent tour.<\/p>\n That hardly inhibited the remaining quartet\u2019s inclination to kick off the album with a musical victory lap, though, as the boys let loose with the jaunty boogie-woogie-piano-driven \u201cAll The Way From Memphis,\u201d still a fixture of composer Ian Hunter\u2019s live set 35 years later.\u00a0 The basic drive is augmented by Roxy Music sax-man Andy What the song \u2013 and in fact the whole album \u2013 seem to really be about, though, is the dark, despairing truths that underlie the rock and roll dreams the boys are by now wondering if they\u2019ve clung to for too long.\u00a0 After four years of marathon touring to enthusiastic crowds but little commercial response were suddenly turned on their head by the unlikely triumph of the Dudes<\/i> album, Hunter, Ralphs and company seemed to be saying \u201cis this all there is?\u201d — \u201cYes it\u2019s a mighty long way down rock\u2019n\u2019roll \/ As your name gets so hot your heart gets cold \/ And you\u2019ve got to stay young, man, you can never grow old.\u201d Hunter\u2019s increasingly bitter disillusionment with the very scene he had suddenly become a leading figure within makes for some biting (and increasingly self-referential) story-telling.\u00a0 His punchy \u201cWhizz Kidd\u201d narrates the tale of a determined groupie willing to break up the band to get her man, while \u201cHymn For The Dudes\u201d carries the threads of the Young Dudes<\/i> narrative forward with a near-gospel ballad about an aging star who\u2019s realized the acid truth of his station in life: \u201cFor so long they\u2019ll come from near and far \/ But you\u2019ll forget just who you are \/ You ain\u2019t the nazz \/ You\u2019re just a buzz \/ Some kinda temporary…\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHonaloochie Boogie\u201d is another \u201c Ralph\u2019s sole lead vocal performance here, \u201cI\u2019m A Cadillac,\u201d is solid, but the Spanish guitar showcase he tacks on the end is the one \u201chuh?\u201d moment on the whole album, foreshadowing his imminent departure from the band.\u00a0 Said departure occurred before this album even hit the streets, as disagreements over the mixing of \u201cViolence\u201d and the band\u2019s adoption of the trappings of glam rock — elaborate costuming and stage production — brought home to Ralphs his diminished role within the band, and led him to walk midway through the subsequent tour.<\/p>\n As they often did, the album closes out with a memorable ballad from Hunter, whose creative presence had become the dominant one in the band by this point.\u00a0 \u201cI Wish I Was Your Mother\u201d exposes the other side of Hunter\u2019s genius, his ability to find surprisingly different and resonant narrative frames for talking about relationships.\u00a0 Here he tries to duck the shrapnel of an exploding relationship by imagining the tender feelings he might still have for his soon-to-be ex-lover if he\u2019d known her as a child.<\/p>\n For all the tumult surrounding it — 40 percent of the band left between the first and last day\u2019s work on the album — Mott<\/i> was in the end the band\u2019s artistic high-water mark.\u00a0 Much like Fleetwood