Ian Hunter CD: "Behind The Shades"

Sleeve and track listing

Airline Records AR-CD-0209.

Review

Hmmm... the film Juno seems to have sparked another release. Having the standard CBS-years fare taken care of with Roll Away The Stone, the compilers here seemed to have opted for solo Ian (live) to get their fair share of Mott classics.

Rather than take a selection from the various live albums Ian has put out over the years, what we have here is a selection from his most recent (The Truth, The Whole Truth, Nothin' But The Truth). Kind of defeats the point, since we have effectively ended up with half of a live album.

Imagine, if you will, just half of Made In Japan (Deep Purple), or half of Strangers In The Night (UFO)... Doesn't make any sense, does it? Well, this one doesn't either. We're used these days to blurb like "expanded!"... "extra tracks!"... well howzabout "half the size! fewer tracks!" No, it doesn't work for me, either.

The track selection is reasonable enough I suppose, although The Journey (actually a medley of early Mott classics) fades out towards the end, only for Dead Man Walking (which was part of the same medley) to appear later. Wierd! Added to which if you didn't have the original you'd never know it was Joe Elliott (of Def Leppard) and Brian May (Queen) guesting on All The Way From Memphis.

Sleeve notes are reasonable (although they get Ian's birth date wrong), although concentrating almost exclusively on his Mott career (oh yes, for the past 33 years he's had a solo career as well).

The only saving grace is a previously-unreleased acoustic version of All The Young Dudes taken, I'm told, from a 2002 (or maybe 2001?) USA TV show. The completists will want it, but for anyone else I can't see why they should bother.