# Deep Tracks - Mott the Hoople - "All The Young Dudes"



## Guest (Sep 10, 2018)

View attachment 107689


Please *choose up to six selections* for this particular poll.

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The tunes themselves will be found below the poll itself as links rather than as embedded videos due to bandwidth issues for those who wish to reacquaint themselves with a tune that may have receded a bit too far into the past to be remembered with the clarity that came when they were first released...

Next up is - Mott the Hoople - "All The Young Dudes"

Mott the Hoople are an English rock band with strong R&B roots, popular in the glam rock era of the early to mid-1970s.

Mott the Hoople were formed in 1966 as the Doc Thomas Group with Mick Ralphs on guitar, Stan Tippins on vocals, and Pete Overend Watts on bass. By 1968, Dale "Buffin" 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.

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 had 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 a name change following their early 1969 audition for Stevens.

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 then gave them the song "All the Young Dudes" which was released as a single in July, 1972.

Bowie also produced the album, which took Mott "from potential has-beens to avatars of the glam rock movement".

"All the Young Dudes" is the fifth studio album by Mott the Hoople, released in 1972. It was their initial album for the CBS Records label (Columbia Records in North America), after three years with Island Records in the UK and Atlantic Records in North America.

In 2003, the album was ranked number 491 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time". In 2012, the album listed at No. 484 on a revised list by the magazine.

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".

With its dirge-like music, youth suicide references and calls to an imaginary audience, the song bore similarities to Bowie's own "Rock 'n' Roll Suicide", the final track from Ziggy Stardust.

Described as being to glam rock what "All You Need Is Love" was to the hippie era, the lyrics name-checked contemporary stars T. Rex and contained references to The Beatles and The Rolling Stones.

NME editors Roy Carr and Charles Shaar Murray have described the track as "one of that rare breed: rock songs which hymn the solidarity of the disaffected without distress or sentimentality".

Bowie himself once claimed that the song was not intended to be an anthem for glam, that it actually carried a darker message of apocalypse.

According to an interview Bowie gave to Rolling Stone magazine in 1973, the boys are carrying the same news that the newscaster was carrying in the song "Five Years" from Ziggy Stardust; the news being the fact that the Earth had only five years left to live. Bowie explains: "All the Young Dudes is a song about this news. It's no hymn to the youth, as people thought. It is completely the opposite."

"All the Young Dudes" is also thought of as a gay anthem. Lou Reed said "It's a Gay Anthem! A rallying call to the young dudes to come out in the streets and show that they were beautiful and gay and proud of it."

The original Mott the Hoople release had to be changed lyrically in order that it might be played on UK radio and TV. The line in the second verse: "Wendy's stealing clothes from Marks and Sparks" was a reference to UK retailer Marks & Spencer, also known by that colloquialism. As such, air play of the song in its original form would have breached broadcasting regulations relating to advertising in force at the time. The line was replaced with: "Wendy's stealing clothes from unlocked cars". Today, both versions are freely aired.

Bowie took to performing "All the Young Dudes" on his own 1973 tour, and a medley version appears on the album Ziggy Stardust - The Motion Picture, the live recording of the last Ziggy show that was finally released officially in 1983.

Bowie's first released version of the song was in 1974 on the David Live double LP. Bowie had also offered "Drive-In Saturday" to Mott the Hoople following "All the Young Dudes", but they turned down this offer, at least partially owing to the then-current success of their own "Honaloochie Boogie".

Editorial note: Turning down tunes written for you by David Bowie is never a good idea.

Personnel -

Verden Allen - organ, backing vocals

Dale "Buffin" Griffin - drums, tambourine

Ian Hunter - lead vocals, guitar, piano, keyboards

Mick Ralphs - guitar, backing vocals

Pete Overend Watts - bass

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mott_the_Hoople

Your commentary on any and every aspect of the album and especially any memories reawakened as a result of the poll is welcomed.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

A band that never really made it in the Netherlands. Only _All the young dudes_ charted, and got no further than #27. Apart from that song, I don't think I've heard any of their work.


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## Guest (Sep 10, 2018)

"*Sweet Jane*" -






"*Momma's Little Jewel*" -






"*All the Young Dudes*" -






"*Sucker*" -






"*Jerkin' Crocus*" -






"*One of the Boys*" -






"*Soft Ground*" -






"*Ready for Love/After Lights*" -






"*Sea Diver*" -


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## Guest (Sep 10, 2018)

Art Rock said:


> A band that never really made it in the Netherlands. Only _All the young dudes_ charted, and got no further than #27. Apart from that song, I don't think I've heard any of their work.


Read this article to find out just how important they are/were -

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2009/sep/03/mott-the-hoople-reunion

and then listen to one or two of the tunes when you get a chance and you'll soon discover why some of us still listen to this album 46 years after it's release.... although every one of us skips "Soft Ground"...


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Art Rock said:


> A band that never really made it in the Netherlands. Only _All the young dudes_ charted, and got no further than #27. Apart from that song, I don't think I've heard any of their work.


In my Sunday School class for teenagers, I was talking about Lamech in the book of Genesis, contrasing it with Martin Luther King's stand on injustice, and I began by quoting Mott's song _Violence_. The kids spent three minutes just laughing at the band's name. I guess I should have just quoted T.S. Eliot.

Of course, when I mentioned Lamech saying he would be "avenged sevenfold," their ears immediately pricked up, especially when I told them I could get them Mike Portnoy's autograph (he's a friend of a friend).

Some pop culture references work; some don't.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

Saved virtually single-handed by Bowie, whose generosity was above and beyond the call, but his production for the album was pretty rough. The sleeve was rather pants as well. The only clunker on there is Verden Allen's _Soft Ground_ - the song never really takes off and Allen was certainly no vocalist. Mick Ralphs re-vamped the riff for _One of the Boys_ when he wrote _Can't Get Enough_ for Bad Company a year later.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

I did go to one of the five Hammersmith shows in 2009. They played in 2013 as well - I didn't go but I was reliably informed that Ian Hunter's voice was nowhere near as strong as it was four years before. They were very good when I saw them though, and there was plenty of fire left in the belly which did them credit, but it was a pity that drummer Buffin was too ill by then to play the whole show - he could only manage the encores and I'm sure there were a few moist eyes in the house when he took his bow at the end. Sadly, both him and bass guitarist Overend Watts have died since then. Word is that Ian Hunter will be doing some shows with Ariel Bender and Morgan Fisher from the 1974 line-up to make up for their absence from the previous reunions.


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## Merl (Jul 28, 2016)

Im a big Mott and Ian Hunter fan. The 'Mott' album is my personal fave but still love this one. Unfortunately i couldnt make the Mott reunions at the end of the naughties but my mate said I dodged a bullet and they were pretty listless. Fortunately ive seen Hunter a few times over the years and especially enjoyed a gig he played at Manchester's Bier Keller that went on for ages and was half solo Hunter and half Mott (i ended up stood on the table shouting for more...we got nearly half an hour of encores). Ready for love is a personal fave from here.


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## Guest (Sep 10, 2018)

elgars ghost said:


> I did go to one of the five Hammersmith shows in 2009. They played in 2013 as well - I didn't go but I was reliably informed that Ian Hunter's voice was nowhere near as strong as it was four years before. They were very good when I saw them though, and there was plenty of fire left in the belly which did them credit, but it was a pity that drummer Buffin was too ill by then to play the whole show - he could only manage the encores and I'm sure there were a few moist eyes in the house when he took his bow at the end. Sadly, both him and bass guitarist Overend Watts have died since then. Word is that Ian Hunter will be doing some shows with Ariel Bender and Morgan Fisher from the 1974 line-up to make up for their absence from the previous reunions.


For those who don't know that Ariel Bender is Luther Grosvenor -

"Luther James Grosvenor (born 23 December 1946 in Evesham, Worcestershire) is an English rock musician, who played guitar in Spooky Tooth, briefly in Stealers Wheel and, under the pseudonym Ariel Bender, in Mott the Hoople and Widowmaker.

For contractual reasons, he changed his name to Ariel Bender at the suggestion of singer-songwriter Lynsey de Paul for his stint with the Mott the Hoople.

According to Mott's lead singer Ian Hunter, interviewed in the documentary The Ballad of Mott the Hoople, the band were in Germany with Lynsey de Paul for a TV show when lead guitarist 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. Grosvenor joined the band in 1973, replacing Ralphs. Grosvenor toured with Mott in 1973 and 1974 and performed on the band's seventh album, The Hoople (1974).

The years with Spooky Tooth (1967 to 1970), Stealers Wheel (1973) and Mott the Hoople (1973 to 1974) were the most successful years in Grosvenor's musical career.

After leaving Mott in 1974 - he was replaced by Mick Ronson - Grosvenor published a few solo albums, and formed Widowmaker, releasing Widowmaker in 1976 and Too Late to Cry in 1977.

In the 1990s, Grosvenor returned in a Spooky Tooth reunion. In 2005, he revived his pseudonym, forming the Ariel Bender Band.

In 2007 and 2008 he performed under the name Ariel Bender's Mott The Hoople performing both Spooky Tooth and Mott The Hoople songs, as well as cover songs.

In June 2018, performing as Ariel Bender, Grosvenor played three Mott The Hoople reunion shows with Hunter and 1974 Mott pianist Morgan Fisher, backed by Hunter's Rant Band. The shows were at festivals in Spain and the United Kingdom and a concert in Norway."

Editorial note: "Ariel Bender's Mott the Hoople"? - Seriously?


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## Belowpar (Jan 14, 2015)

Glad you explained Ariel Bender. Back in those days that surname had a distinctly un PC meaning and reading it gave me quite a different image.

Its also reminded me that I had a few of my own aerials bent in those days too.(no pun intended)


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