Mott The Hoople

Led by guitarist Mick Ralphs, Mott the Hoople was initially a bluesy hard-rock band but Ian Hunter's vocals (a clear imitation of Bob Dylan) made it different from the average. Mott the Hoople (Atlantic, 1969), inspired by Bob Dylan's Blonde On Blonde, contains their anthemic Rock And Roll Queen. The band transitioned to a mellower style with a series of mediocre albums: Mad Shadows (Atlantic, 1970), Wildlife (Atlantic, 1971), and the hardest rocking of them all, Brain Capers (Atlantic, 1972), with Hunter's plaintive Sweet Angeline. Glam-rocker David Bowie rescued them by offering them the decadent anthem All The Young Dudes, the hit from All The Young Dudes (Columbia, 1972). Mott (1973) contained The Ballad Of Mott The Hoople, the driving All The Way From Memphis, Honaloochie Boogie and a proto-punk anthem, Violence

Hunter launched his solo career with a book, "Diary Of A Rock Star", while Ralphs left to form Bad Company, while A new line-up, with Luther Grosvenor on guitar and keyboardist Morgan Fisher, recorded The Hoople (1974), with The Golden Age Of Rock N Roll, Roll Away The Stone and another proto-punk anthem, Crash Street Kids, plus the single Saturday Gigs.

The last Mott The Hoople (by then shortened to Mott) albums were Drive On (1975) and Shouting And Pointing (1976).

Relocating to New York, and hiring Mick Ronson on guitar, Hunter was far more successful than the group with Ian Hunter (Columbia, 1975), that contains his classic Once Bitten Twice Shy, All American Alien Boy (1976), that contains the nostalgic serenade Irene Wilde. Overnight Angels (1977) was his ultimate decadent album, but, in terms of artistic value, You're Never Alone With A Schizophrenic (Chrysalis, 1979) was the real deal, led by the rousing trio of Just Another Night, Wild East and Cleveland Rocks and topped by the anthemic Bastard (plus the poppy When The Daylight Comes and the power-ballad Standin' In My Light).
Hunter's rebel postures gained him the esteem of the punk generation.
Shades (1979) is a Ian Hunter (and Mott The Hoople) retrospective and Welcome To The Club (1980) is a live album. Hunter and Ronson continued their cooperation on Short Back N Sides (1981), All Of THe Good Ones Are Taken (1983), Y U I Orta (1989).

Ronson died of cancer in 1993.

Suprisingly the partner's disappearance helped Hunter deliver some of his best performances on Dirty Laundry (Norsk, 1995).

Keyboardist Morgan Fisher went on to create some of the most adventurous music on the planet with Hybrid Kids and Claws (CherryRed, 1980), two eccentric albums that predate the 1990s, and Miniatures (1980), a work for 50 performers (Lol Coxhill, Fred Frith, Robert Wyatt, Robert Fripp, Pete Seeger, etc), each being granted only a minute.

Ian Hunter continue to release solo albums Artful Dodger (1997), Rant (2001), Shrunken Heads (2007), probably the best of the series, and Man Overboard (2009).

Mick Ralphs died in 2025 at the age of 81.