July 9, 2021 —– Chart #99
Hello Musical Friends,
Welcome to Friday and the 99th edition of Chart of the Day. What can I say, we are back to 1972 again with a song that can be hard to get out of your head once you start singing it. So many great songs from 1965 to 1978. “All the Young Dudes” is a song written by English singer-songwriter David Bowie, originally recorded and released as a single by the English rock band Mott the Hoople in 1972 by Columbia Records. Produced by Bowie, he gave the song to the band after they rejected Bowie’s “Suffragette City”. Bowie would subsequently record the song himself. Regarded as an anthem of glam rock, the song has received acclaim and was a commercial success. In 2004, Rolling Stone rated “All the Young Dudes” No. 253 in its list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time and on its 2010 update was ranked at number 256. It is also one of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll.
Mott the Hoople are an English rock band formed in Herefordshire, England. Originally known as the Doc Thomas Group, the group changed their name after signing with Island Records in 1969. The band released albums throughout the early 1970s but failed to find commercial success. On the verge of breaking up, the band were encouraged by David Bowie to stay together. Bowie wrote the glam rock song “All the Young Dudes” for them, which became a massive commercial success in 1972. Bowie subsequently produced an album of the same name for them, which continued their success.
Despite personnel changes, the band had further commercial success with Mott (1973) and The Hoople (1974). Lead singer Ian Hunter departed the band in 1974, after which the band’s commercial fortunes began to dwindle. They remained together with continuing personnel changes until their break-up in 1980. The band have had reunions in 2009, 2013, 2018 and 2019, and have reunited as of 2020.
The Doc Thomas Group were formed in 1966 with Mick Ralphs on guitar, Stan Tippins on vocals, and Pete Overend Watts on bass. Ralphs and Tippins had been in a local Hereford band the Buddies, and Watts had been in a local Ross-on-Wye band the Soulents with Dale “Buffin” Griffin on drums. The Doc Thomas Group had a concert residency at a nightclub in a resort town in Italy. The group was offered a recording contract with the Italian label Dischi Interrecord, and released an eponymous album in January 1967. By 1968, Griffin and organist Verden Allen had joined the band. Although the group toured and recorded in Italy as the Doc Thomas Group, their gigs in the UK were played under the names of the Shakedown Sound and later, as Silence. Silence recorded demos at Rockfield Studios in Monmouth, Wales, which were shopped to EMI, Polydor, Immediate and Apple with no success.
The group came to the attention of Guy Stevens at Island, who liked the group but not with Tippins as lead singer. Advertisements were placed (“Singer wanted, must be image-minded and hungry”), and Ian Hunter was selected as lead singer and piano player. Tippins assumed the role of road manager. While in prison on a drug offence, Stevens read the Willard Manus novel Mott the Hoople, about an eccentric who works in a circus freak show, and decided to use it as a band name. Silence reluctantly agreed to change the band’s name to Mott The Hoople following their audition for Stevens in early 1969.
The band’s debut album, Mott the Hoople (1969), recorded in only a week, was a cult success. Their repertoire included cover versions of “Laugh at Me” (Sonny Bono) and “At the Crossroads” (Doug Sahm’s Sir Douglas Quintet), and an instrumental cover of “You Really Got Me” (The Kinks).
The second album, Mad Shadows (1970), sold poorly and received generally negative reviews. Wildlife (1971) fared even worse (despite gaining the highest UK album chart position of the band’s pre-Glam years), and flirted with an overtly country-hippie stance and more acoustic instrumentation on some Ralphs-penned songs . On 10 October 1970, Mott the Hoople and Bridget St John were showcased on BBC2’s Disco 2. Even though the group was building a decent following, Brain Capers (1971) failed to sell well. The group decided to split following a depressing concert in a disused gas holder in Switzerland. When combined with an aborted UK tour with The Lothringers, the band was close to breaking up.
David Bowie had long been a fan of the band. After learning from Watts that they were about to split, he persuaded them to stay together and offered them “Suffragette City” from his then yet-to-be-released Ziggy Stardust album. They turned it down. Bowie also penned “All the Young Dudes” for them and it became their biggest hit. Released as a single in July 1972, it was a success in the UK, with the band using Tippins – who by this time was their tour manager – to sing backing vocals during concert. Bowie produced an album, also called All the Young Dudes, which included a Mick Ronson strings and brass arrangement for “Sea Diver”. It sold well, but stalled at No. 21 in the UK Albums Chart. Another casualty in the wake of All the Young Dudes was Verden Allen, who departed before the release of their next album, Mott.
Mott climbed into the Top 10 of the UK Albums Chart, and became the band’s best seller to date in the US. It yielded two UK hits, “Honaloochie Boogie” and “All the Way from Memphis”, both featuring Andy Mackay of Roxy Music on saxophone. “All the Way from Memphis” is also featured in the movie Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore.
In May 1973, following Verden Allen’s departure, the band was augmented by two keyboard players. Former Love Affair and Morgan member Morgan Fisher joined as keyboardist and Mick Bolton joined on Hammond Organ. Bolton left at the end of 1973 and was replaced on tour by Blue Weaver, while Fisher stayed on to become Allen’s official replacement in the band. Ralphs left in August 1973 to form Bad Company and was replaced by former Spooky Tooth guitarist Luther Grosvenor. For contractual reasons, he changed his name to Ariel Bender at the suggestion of singer-songwriter Lynsey de Paul for his stint with the band. According to Ian Hunter, interviewed in the documentary Ballad of Mott the Hoople, the band were in Germany with de Paul for a TV show when Mick Ralphs walked down a street bending a succession of car aerials in frustration. De Paul came out with the phrase “aerial bender” which Hunter later suggested to Grosvenor as a stage name.
In 1974, the band had a chart success in the UK with “Roll Away the Stone” recorded before Mick Ralphs left the band. Ralphs played lead guitar and the Thunderthighs provided female vocal backing and a bridge. It reached No.8 on the UK Singles Chart.
In 1974, Mott the Hoople toured America with Ariel Bender playing lead guitar. In one of Bender’s earliest performances with the band they played the Masonic Temple in Detroit on 12 October 1973 with a young Aerosmith opening the show. They were primarily supported on the ’74 tour by the band Queen. This tour later provided the inspiration for Queen’s 1975 single “Now I’m Here”, which contains the lyrics “Down in the city, just Hoople and me.” The song became a live favorite of Queen fans and reached No. 11 in the UK Singles Chart. The tour resulted in a lifelong friendship between the two bands, with Ian Hunter, Mick Ronson and David Bowie performing “All the Young Dudes” at the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert in 1992. Morgan Fisher went on to play piano on Queen’s ‘Hot Space’ tour in 1982, and Brian May, Freddie Mercury and Roger Taylor performed backing vocals on the Ian Hunter solo song, “You Nearly Did Me In”. May would later cover Mott’s “All the Way from Memphis” on his solo album, Another World, with Hunter making a guest appearance. Mott the Hoople are name-checked on two other hit singles. Reunion’s 1974 single “Life Is a Rock (But the Radio Rolled Me)” begins with the lyrics ‘B Bumble and the Stingers, Mott the Hoople, Ray Charles Singers…’.; and R.E.M.’s “Man on the Moon” begins with ‘Mott the Hoople and the Game of Life, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah…’
In the afterglow of The Hoople (1974), a live album Live was quickly released, after which Mick Ronson replaced Bender. The end was near when both Hunter and Ronson left the group to form a duo, following which the band abbreviated its name to ‘Mott’.
Hunter’s book Diary of a Rock’n’Roll Star about the day-to-day life on the band’s 1972 winter tour of the US, covering the ups and downs of life on the road, was published in June 1974. It was out of print for many years but was reissued in 1996.
Hope you find this back story stuff interesting, I know I do.
Here’s an All Star performance from the 2019 R&R Hall of Fame Induction: https://youtu.be/mwafkDtOmfY
Keep rockin’ my friends,
Stan