Mott The Hoople and Ian Hunter

Mott The Hoople CD: "The Ballad of Mott (A Retrospective)"

Sleeve and track listing

Sony/Legacy C2K 46973. (3.5 stars!)

Disc 1 (73m44s)

  1. Rock and Roll Queen (5:08)
  2. Walkin' With a Mountain (3:51)
  3. Waterlow (3:01)
  4. Sweet Angeline (4:52)
  5. All The Young Dudes (3:33)
  6. Momma's Little Jewel (4:26)
  7. One Of The Boys (6:46)
  8. Sucker (5:01)
  9. Sweet Jane (4:22)
  10. Sea Diver (2:55)
  11. Ready For Love/After Lights (6:47)
  12. Ballad Of Mott The Hoople (March 26, 1972 - Zurich) (5:24)
  13. Drivin' Sister (3:52)
  14. Violence (4:49)
  15. Rose (3:57)
  16. I Wish I Was Your Mother (4:51)

Disc 2 (66m02s)

  1. Honaloochie Boogie (2:44)
  2. All The Way From Memphis (4:59)
  3. Whizz Kid (3:26)
  4. Hymn For The Dudes (5:24)
  5. The Golden Age Of Rock 'n' Roll (3:26)
  6. Rest In Peace (3:55)
  7. Marionette (5:04)
  8. Crash Street Kidds (4:31)
  9. Born Late '58 (3:59)
  10. Roll Away The Stone (3:09)
  11. Where Do You All Come From (3:27)
  12. Henry And The H-Bomb (3:30)
  13. Foxy Foxy (3:31)
  14. Saturday Gigs (4:28)
  15. Lounge Lizzard (4:19)
  16. Through The Looking Glass (4:38)
  17. American Pie (1:23)

Review

I have mixed feelings of this 2-CD set from Columbia. On the one hand, the track selection is strong. It includes most of the B-sides, the non-LP singles Foxy Foxy and Saturday Gigs (though this is an alternate version, with Mick Ronson on synth), the previously-unreleased Henry And The H-Bomb and Lounge Lizard, and the "uncensored" version of Through The Looking Glass (with an explosion of very bad language at the end). Sound quality is OK (but not the best).

But why did they include the four Island/Atlantic tracks? Why didn't they include the B-side version of One Of The Boys? Why have we been given the LP version of Roll Away The Stone (again), when the single version is (a) stronger, and (b) was Mott's biggest-selling UK single? Why is there no live material (excepting Ian Hunter's brilliant interpretation of the classic American Pie, recorded live at Uris). Why such a lame cover? The sleeve-notes seem, on the face of it, to be good, but they concentrate on Ian too much - weren't Mott supposed to be a band?

Note that Lounge Lizard has since been made available on other releases, but Henry And The H-Bomb, the "synth" version of Saturday Gigs and "uncensored" version of Through The Looking Glass are still (in 2018) unavailable anywhere else.