Mott The Hoople – The Golden Age Of Rock And Roll

Happy Friday to everyone. This ends my unofficial week of UK bands that didn’t break big in the US. All of them should have but for different reasons didn’t quite make it. Whenever Ian Hunter sings I listen. Not only was he great in Mott The Hoople but I like his solo music as well. The first time I noticed him was with All The Young Dudes and then a single release in the 80s called All The Good Ones Are Taken. It was wonderful in the middle of the 80s hearing that power pop single on the radio.

Mott The Hoople had one huge hit in America. It was the David Bowie penned song All The Young Dudes. Bowie was a fan of the band and sent them Suffragette City but they didn’t think it fit their style and politely turned it down. Mott The Hoople were about to break up so Bowie showed this to the band on acoustic guitar and they loved it right away.

The Golden Age Of Rock and Roll was written by Ian Hunter. It was released in 1974 on the album The Hoople. This would be the last album with Ian Hunter as lead singer. It was also the first and only one with guitarist Luther James Grosvenor, who went by Ariel Bender for contractual reasons. He replaced Mick Ralphs who left the year before and co-founded Bad Company.

Mott The Hoople influenced bands such as Oasis, Queen, Def Leppard, Queen, The Clash, KISS, Cheap Trick, and many more.

Hunter started a solo career with the eponymous 1975 album that included his song, Once Bitten Twice Shy,  and has remained prolific. That song was later covered by Great White in 1989.

 Ian Hunter had journalistic training. “When I left school I became a cub reporter for the Wellington Journal in Shropshire, that job lasted about three months because although I could do the typing. I couldn’t do the shorthand. Then I went to Butlins [holiday camp] with my girlfriend and met two kids in a group who asked me to enter a talent competition with them.

“We’d only known each other for three days and there were about 165 acts altogether – but we won it, then a couple of weeks later I had a letter from them in Northampton asking me to join them in a group. That group was called Apex and that was in fact how it all started.”

Some fun trivia…Kari-Ann Mollera was the model on the The Hoople album and Roxy Music’s 1972 debut album. 

The Golden Age of Rock ‘n’ Roll

Everybody hazy shell-shocked and crazyScreaming for the face at the windowJeans for the genies dresses for the dreamiesFighting for a place in the front row

Oh oh oh good for your body it’s good for your soulOh oh let’s go it’s the golden age of rock and roll

Well you get a little buzz send for the fuzzGuitars gettin’ higher and higherThe dude in the paint thinks he’s gonna faintStoke more coke on the fire

Oh oh oh gotta stay young you can never grow oldOh oh the golden age of rock and roll

The golden age of rock and roll will never dieAs long as the children feel the need to laugh and cryDon’t wanna wreck, just recreationDon’t wanna fight but if you turn us downWe’re gonna turn you ’roundDon’t mess with the soundThe show’s gotta move everybody grooveThere ain’t no trouble on the streets nowSo if the going gets rough don’t you blame us

Oh oh oh gotta stay young you can never grow oldOh oh the golden age of rock and roll

Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player.

40 thoughts on “Mott The Hoople – The Golden Age Of Rock And Roll”

  5. good post, I learned a few things. I didn’t know that ‘Once Bitten Twice Shy’ was one of their songs for instance. And hadn’t seen the cover of that album but looking up a bit about Kari-Ann, she went on to marry Mick Jagger’s brother… who is now trying to get her to be able to stay in Britain because there’s some EU dispute and Britain want to deport her for not being born there or some such idiocy. I think a lot of us on this side of the ocean first heard of Mott the Hoople when they were referenced in the song ‘Life is a Rock’ by Reunion.

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    1. Well it was Ian Hunters song but yea…he had it on his first album. I remember All The Young Dudes around the time it was a big hit…now I’m not sure if I knew the name. I found out more about Hunter after that 1980s single came out.

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      1. a good mini-series Max! Four good examples and maybe the best ones in terms of the discrepancy between the tastes there and here. Roxy Music (who you mention in this one ) also comes to mind, but at least they did have SOME success here and moderately good success in canada, but not like over there. We could also add in that ‘British Elvis’ – Cliff Richard! Granted, he had a couple of big hits here, but damn, he was seemingly owning the charts there for years and years.

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      2. I need to do a post of Roxy Music…I don’t think I ever have. I keep saying it…but I love their early bass sound…it’s that good to stick with me.
        I had one on the Small Faces wrote up…I did Mott The Hoople instead…I will look for some more as well…these were the obvious ones. It went over WAY better than I thought. I had a lot of UK readers this week.

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      3. LOL…it still bad!
        No it’s a good book that I’m happy they have rereleased it…sad as hell but a good and the only real book on them.

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  7. You are very much entering into the Panther’s territory here, his natural habitat, and have been doing so all week, with Bolan, Slade and Quo.

    I could go on for ages about this and that, but I won’t save for making the point that Mott played Broadway’s Uris Theater in 1974 (some material is included on 1974’s Mott The Hoople Live) so they must have had some US popularity. They were supported by none other than Queen, which gave rise to the lyric in Queen’s “Now I’m Here” of “down in the city just Hoople and me”.

    Personally, I believe the Bowie/Dudes tale has, over the years, become somewhat apocryphal and mythologised. Of course there is many a truth in it, but I have read several things over the years that I believe have been embellished for effect. Just my opinion, of course!

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    1. The story very well could have been embellished. Stories do that as they are passed down through the years. You mentioned that album and that is the reason I included this cut from it. I checked much of it out and I really like it.

      I’ve never heard Queen live that early. I’ve seen a few clips of Lynyrd Skynyrd open for them…which I thought was one of the strangest pairings I’ve ever seen….but I didn’t see Queens set.

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    1. Of course you were lol! NO dude take your time because I do this to you all of the time. You are the one that inspired this week when you told me to do a Status Quo song…so I thought the hell with it…I’ll do it all week!

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  10. “The Golden Age of Rock & Roll” sounds cool. The only Mott The Hoople I can name is “All the Young Dudes.” Speaking of Ian Hunter, I just saw he’s coming out with “Defiance Part 2: Fiction” next Friday! You may recall I covered “Defiance Part 1” when it came out in April 2023 – great album!

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    1. Oh cool dude! I’m looking forward to it… Chrisitan you might know “All The Way From Memphis”….it’s probably their most well known song besides All The Young Dudes

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      3. I like what I’ve heard by Ian Hunter thus far. Apart from “Defiance Part 1”, it only comes down to a handful of other songs, including from his 1979 album “You’re Never Alone with a Schizophrenic”. Two tracks from “Defiance Part 2” are already out. He’s turning 85 in June and his vocals still sound amazing!

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