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Mott The Hoople and Ian Hunter

Laing/Hunter/Ronson/Pappalardi CD: "The Secret Sessions"

Sleeve and track listing

Pet Rock Records PET-CD-60042 (3 stars!)

  1. Easy Money
  2. Silent Movie
  3. I Ain't No Angel
  4. The Best Thing
  5. I Hate Dancin'
  6. The Outsider
  7. Just When I Needed You Most
  8. Lowdown Freedom
  9. On My Way To Georgia
  10. Growing Old With Rock 'n' Roll

Review

In 1978 Corky Laing (of Mountain), acting on a suggestion from his record company, put a "supergroup" together featuring himself (drums/vocals), Ian Hunter (ex Mott The Hoople) on keyboards/vocals, Mick Ronson on guitar and Felix Peppalardi (Mountain) on bass. They started recording, but shortly after the record company lost interest and funding stopped. The sessions were completed at a different studio, but remained in the can - until now.

The CD opens strongly enough, with the superb Easy Money, but soon descends into ordinaryness. Although all the tracks are complete versions, they sound rushed or demo-like, with little standing out, apart from a brilliant, lengthy version of The Outsider, which of course Ian recorded for his Schizophrenic album.

The CD is filled out with two tracks from Corky's 1978 solo album, perhaps because originally once funding had stopped there wasn't the time or money to record a full album's worth of material.

In summary, a CD mainly of historical interest only. Ian Hunter completists will want it, ditto Corky Laing/Mountain fans, but I doubt if the casual fan would be persuaded to part with his cash.