Mott The Hoople and Ian Hunter

Unofficial CD: "Guitar Bandits"

Sleeve and track listing

Catalogue details not available (2 stars!)

  1. American Pie/Golden Age of Rock 'n' Roll
  2. Sucker
  3. Born Late '58
  4. One Of The Boys
  5. Marionette
  6. All The Way From Memphis

Review

The Mott The Hoople part of this "various artists" compilation is taken from a KBFH radio CD that circulated in the late 80's. The fact the people behind this release call these recordings "California Jam" says it all, really: New York City isn't in California (not the last time I looked anyway).

The music is of very good quality, as you'd expect given the source, but the sound is weird. The soundstage is unfocussed, with a weird delay between the left and right channels. Dale Griffin reckons it is one track front and one back from a quadraphonic master, and he's almost certainly right. Sucker is about 30s longer than on the official Live LP, some of Blue's organ solo having been edited for space reasons. Born Late 58 is powerful stuff, Bender playing with his slide guitar like it was a new toy. Marionette is the highlight: powerful, pacey and full of dynamics - a far cry from the dismal mix on the Shades Of... 2-LP/2-CD compilation.

This material is available elsewhere, and enough fans own the KBFH radio CD that obtaining a copy of the Mott The Hoople tracks presented here (either on tape or CD-R) shouldn't prove too difficult.