Archive Review: Ian Hunter Band featuring Mick Ronson - Live At Rockpalast (2012)

In the absence of legitimate contemporary rock ‘n’ roll heroes, a sort of “cult of personality” has grown up around a number of admittedly eccentric 1960s-and-‘70s-era musicians. From Nick Lowe and Robyn Hitchcock to Todd Rundgren and other aging rockers raised in the long shadows of the second World War, the digital era has been kinder to them than most, prompting a rediscovery of their early, acclaimed work by a younger audience, extending their careers long past the ostensible commercial “sell by” date. In many instances, it has enabled these artists to grow old with dignity and grace, allowing them to deliver some of the best music of their lives in the 21st century.

Of all of these fellow travelers, Ian Hunter is the oldest and, perhaps, the most iconoclastic. A late arrival to U.K. glam-rock cult faves Mott the Hoople, Hunter quickly took over the band’s creative reins and became its best-known member. (Don’t think so? Quick, name another Mott member other than Hunter or guitarist Mick Ralphs…) Hunter’s often-snarky, Dylan-inspired wordplay and the band’s guitar-heavy hard-rock sound would earn them a modicum of fame, if little fortune, and by the mid-1970s, realizing that the party was coming to a close, Hunter jumped the Mott ship for a solo career, taking former David Bowie/Lou Reed guitarist, and recent band addition Mick Ronson with him.

Although a direct line can be drawn from Mott the Hoople to the intelligent punk-rock of the Clash and the less-intellectual, but admittedly more commercially successful pseudo-metal of Def Leppard, it is Ian Hunter’s sporadic solo career that has influenced a generation of British, as well as a lesser number of American musicians. Beginning with his self-titled 1975 debut, which yielded the classic “Once Bitten Twice Shy,” through the end of the decade and a handful of albums culminating in 1979’s You’re Never Alone With A Schizophrenic, which entered “Just Another Night” and “Cleveland Rocks” to the rock ‘n’ roll lexicon, Hunter wrote a musical legacy that continues to resonate loudly even in recent works like 2007’s Shrunken Heads and 2009’s Man Overboard.

Ian Hunter Band featuring Mick Ronson Live At Rockpalast

In April 1980, reunited with his friend and longtime musical foil Ronson (management problems having kept the two madmen apart for several years), Hunter performed for the popular German TV show Rockpalast. Translating, roughly, as “Rock Palace,” the program has been broadcast since 1974, airing performances from, literally, hundreds of rock, blues, jazz, and other artists. Video clips from the TV show have been a staple of YouTube since the dawn of that website, but only within the last couple of years has Germany’s MIG Music made a number of full-length performances available on CD and DVD. Hunter’s 1980 Rockpalast performance, prominently featuring guitarist Ronson, stands as a true gem among an eclectic and varied catalog offered by MIG Music.

Fronting a band that included Ronson, bassist Martin Briley, a pair of keyboard players, and a drummer, Hunter rips through a baker’s dozen of songs from both his solo albums as well as his tenure with Mott the Hoople. Performing in front of an enthusiastic German audience at the large Grugahalle arena in Essen, Germany, the first half of Live At Rockpalast mimics the tracklist, if not the actual performances, found on Hunter’s 1980 live release Welcome To the Club. The album-opening instrumental “F.B.I.” is effectively a raucous band intro fueled by Ronson’s wiry fretwork and a driving rhythm that leads straightaway into “Once Bitten Twice Shy,” the hoary hard-rock chestnut stripped down here, provided a slight boogie-rock framework with Hunter’s wry vocals dancing atop a sparse arrangement that explodes into a full-blown rock ‘n’ roll cyclone.

The beautifully lovestruck “Angeline” (a/k/a “Sweet Angeline,” from Brain Capers) is the first of several Mott the Hoople treasures recreated here, the song’s simple, slightly-twangy construction reminiscent of Nick Lowe’s Brinsley Schwartz, Hunter’s passionate vocals rising above a cacophony of chiming guitars and cascading drumbeats. A pair of beloved tunes from that band’s breakthrough 1973 album Mott are provided similar reverence, the wistful “I Wish I Was Your Mother” benefiting from Ronson’s elegant guitarplay and Hunter’s haunting, weary vocals while the up-tempo “All the Way From Memphis” displays all the reckless abandon and joyful banter of the original.

Cleveland Rocks

Of Hunter’s modest solo hits, “Cleveland Rocks” may be better-known than “Just Another Night” due to its use as the theme of The Drew Carey Show for several years, performed there by the Presidents of the United States of America (remember “Lump”?). Hunter’s version kicks ass, hands down, the singer declaring the city one of the birthplaces of rock ‘n’ roll and then kicking out the jams with a high-octane performance that is over-the-top delicious in its unbridled energy. Hunter’s vocals ride a wave of distorted guitars and crashing rhythms, feedback creeping in at the edges as the singer delivers the lyrics with a punkish sneer and a sly grin. “Just Another Night” ain’t chopped liver, though…Hunter’s swaggering vocals sit comfortably within a blanket of sound, keyboards tinkling above a sweaty, grinding dancefloor rhythm.

Live At Rockpalast includes performances of several of Hunter’s lesser-known songs as well as an intriguing cover of the obscure mid-1960s Sonny Bono single “Laugh At Me.” A spry pop-rock tune with an undeniable melody, vocal harmonies, edgy guitarwork, and period-perfect alienated teen lyrics, Hunter and crew crank up the pathos and turn up the amps and deliver a riveting performance. “We Gotta Get Out Of Here” debuted on Welcome To the Club and, sadly, wouldn’t be reprised on any later studio albums. Here the song is a hard-rocking sledgehammer with an infectious chorus, scraps of honky-tonk piano, tense guitar, bashed cymbals, gang vocals, and an overall crescendo of chaotic instrumentation.

The set, somewhat appropriately, closes with the Mott hit “All the Young Dudes” and Ronson’s “Slaughter On 10th Avenue.” The former, handed to the band by the album’s producer David Bowie, is played embarrassingly straight. Ronson’s guitar mimics perfectly Mick Ralph’s original rakish note-picking, and Hunter’s vocals sound every bit as punkish in 1980 as they did in 1972. The upbeat “Dudes” leads right into Ronson’s languid instrumental; taken from the guitarist’s 1974 solo album by that name, the song starts out slow and jazzy and builds to an enormously satisfying finish.

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

Ian Hunter and Mick Ronson would more or less carry on their musical collaboration until Ronson’s untimely death in 1993, frequently touring throughout the early 1980s as the Hunter Ronson Band of which, sadly, only bootleg recordings seem to exist. When Hunter went on hiatus during the latter half of the 1980s, Ronson continued to record and produce, touring with Dylan and working with artists as diverse as Morrissey, Meatloaf, Roger McGuinn, and John Mellencamp, among others.

The two friends would reunite for Hunter’s 1990 album YUI Orta, and performed together one last time in 1992 during a tribute to Queen’s Freddie Mercury that would be documented on Ronson’s posthumous solo album Heaven and Hull. For a couple of nights in Germany in 1980, however, both artists were at the top of their game, and Live At Rockpalast captures the magic that was Ian Hunter and Mick Ronson together. (MIG Music, released August 8, 2012)

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Review originally published by Blurt magazine

Archive Review: Roy Buchanan’s Live At Rockpalast (2012)

Roy Buchanan is probably the best guitarist that you’ve never heard. Although he found a modicum of success with the twelve albums he released during his lifetime, two of them achieving Gold® sales status (a heady accomplishment in the 1970s), his influence reaches far beyond the meager commercial returns of his work. The “Master of the Telecaster” provided inspiration for fellow guitarists like Jeff Beck, Gary Moore, Danny Gatton, and ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons, among others with his heady brew of blues, roots-rock, R&B, and country music.

After an amazing string of eight studio and a single live album recorded and released during the brief space of nine years, by 1981 Buchanan was burned out. The vagaries of the recording industry, and his labels’ attempts to conform his talents to a saleable commodity had left him disgruntled and disillusioned. The guitarist would virtually disappear for a spell, taking a four-year hiatus to re-think and re-charge his batteries. Lucky for us, Alligator Records’ Bruce Iglauer convinced Buchanan to return from his self-imposed exile, giving the guitarist artistic control in the studio that would result in some of the best recordings of Buchanan’s career.

Roy Buchanan’s Live At Rockpalast

Live At Rockpalast is taken from a February 1985 performance by the guitarist and his band for the popular German TV show Rockpalast, and would mark Buchanan’s return to music…and what a return it would prove to be! Buchanan’s performance here, prior to the recording of his Alligator debut When A Guitar Plays the Blues, shows an artist and musician back in fighting form and shaking off the ring rust. Leading a band that included (seldom used) singer Martin Stephenson, keyboardist John Steel, and bassist Anthony Dumm – all members of U.K. pop/rock band the Daintees – as well as drummer Martin Yula, Buchanan cranks through a baker’s dozen of original blues-flavored roots-rockers and favorite covers, much to the delight of the enthusiastic German audience.

The set kicks off with the spry “Thing In G (Short Fuse),” a funky instrumental romp that sounds not unlike some of the material Stevie Ray Vaughan would be vamping on a couple of short years later. While the band provides a supple rhythm, Buchanan embroiders the song with his red-hot fretwork, the guitarist firing on all cylinders as he throws in sly blues, jazz, and rockabilly references throughout the four-minute firecracker. Buchanan’s subsequent take on Booker T & the M.G.s’ classic “Green Onion” is unlike any you’ve ever heard…while the band offers up a standard take on the song’s keyboard riffing and swaggering drumbeats, the guitarist stomps all over tradition with his wild-ass flamethrower solos, which bounce off the arrangement like a madman careening off the walls of his rubber room. It makes for an energetic and unpredictable performance, and a heck of a lot of fun.

Blues In D

Buchanan was well-known and revered for his ability to fuse blues, rock, and country music into an earthy, organic sound, and nowhere did he ever do it better than with “Roy’s Blues (Roy’s Bluz).” An intricate instrumental backdrop frames the almost whispered, briefly spoken lyrics as Buchanan’s fretwork ranges from low-key blues and roots-rock to jagged shards of angular jazz licks and twangy, barbed-wire country tones. It’s not blues as we know it, but it’s breathtaking nevertheless, the song stretched out to ten minutes by Buchanan and band so that by the time he hits the crescendo almost six minutes in, when the raucous vocals fly out of nowhere, you’re left exhausted.

By contrast, Buchanan’s instrumental “Blues In D” is a more traditional blues shuffle, with the guitarist showing his mojo hand through a number of passages throughout the song. Above a standard Chicago blues bass/drums rhythm, Buchanan tacks on an incendiary display of six-string pyrotechnics, emotion pouring from his fingertips in a performance that is pure instinct and adrenalin. He takes much the same tack with songwriter Don Gibson’s “Sweet Dreams,” Buchanan’s mournful, tear-jerking solos echoing the song’s heartbreak lyrics, adding a bit of blues hue to this instrumental take on a beloved country classic.

Foxy Lady

    
Like just about every other guitarist that came of age during the 1960s, Buchanan was touched by the incredible sounds that issued from the instrument of the late Jimi Hendrix. Buchanan’s take on Hendrix’s “Hey Joe” – the song a garage-rock standard first hit big by the Leaves in 1965 and later adapted by Hendrix as the Experience’s first single – skews more towards Hendrix’s vision in this performance. Although Stevenson’s vocals are unremarkable, it’s Buchanan’s mangling of his instrument that draws your attention, his solos incorporating scraps of blues, rock, and some otherworldly sounds that even Jimi couldn’t reach. The following version of Hendrix’s “Foxy Lady” soars even further into the stratosphere, the vocals overshadowed and hidden beneath Buchanan’s unbelievable, high-flying guitar and the muscular rhythmic soundtrack provided by Dumm and Yula.

Buchanan’s “Messiah (Messiah Will Come Again)” is provided a truly ethereal performance here, the song’s unlikely fusion of blues and rock with classical music overtones unique to Buchanan’s particular experience and perspective. His haunting guitarplay here is elegantly beautiful and tragically dark, the guitarist wringing every bit of energy and emotion from his fretboard. The mood is heightened greatly, however, by the upbeat “Night Train,” a rockabilly-tinged instrumental with a ramshackle framework that rocks and rolls like the wheels on a freight train. Buchanan closes Live At Rockpalast with “Wayfaring Pilgrim,” another haunting instrumental that showcases his immense abilities, great tone, and masterful blending of musical styles.

The Reverend’s Bottom Line

The 1985 release of the acclaimed When A Guitar Plays the Blues represented the beginning of a fertile period of Roy Buchanan’s career, the guitarist quickly recording 1986’s Dancing On the Edge and the following year’s Hot Wires before his tragic death in 1988. Returning to the trenches after a four-year break, Buchanan sounds recharged, revved-up, and ready-to-roll on Live At Rockpalast. There are few live documents of this unique and influential guitarist available, and this one is well worth your hard-earned coin. (MIG Music, released March 6, 2012)

Buy the CD from Amazon.com: Roy Buchanan’s Live At Rockpalast

Jack Bruce’s 50th Birthday Concerts

The late Jack Bruce made a lot of great music before his death last month, and just about everything he recorded during his lengthy career – his work with Cream, the power trio West, Bruce & Laing, and his numerous solo albums, from Songs For A Tailor and Harmony Row to this year's Silver Rails – features expressive, imaginative, entertaining, and adventuresome music.

Way back in 1993, Jack Bruce celebrated his 50th birthday with a pair of November shows at the E-Werk in Cologne, Germany that featured a number of his famous and talented friends. Former Cream drummer Ginger Baker made the party, as did noted British saxophonist Dick Heckstall-Smith (who played on Bruce’s early solo albums) and former Humble Pie guitarist Clem Clempson. Funkadelic guitarist Bernie Worrell and former Thin Lizzy guitarist and solo star Gary Moore joined the celebration, as did a number of other special guests like singer Maggie Reilly, pianist Gary Husband, and drummer Simon Phillips.

The performances were taped for the popular German TV show Rockpalast, and parts of them were originally released in 1994 as the two-disc Cities of the Heart. Sadly, that album suffered from poor distribution, and the concerts virtually disappeared memory. On December 2, 2014 however our good friends at MVD Entertainment are resurrecting this important slice of rock ‘n’ roll history with the release of The 50th Birthday Concerts starring Jack Bruce and friends.

The performances will be released in a number of formats, including a double-DVD set featuring almost four hours of music; a three-disc set that includes the two DVDs and a bonus CD, The Lost Tracks, as well as a 12-page booklet with new liner notes and unreleased photos; and a deluxe four-disc box set with three DVDs and the CD, the bonus DVD including interview footage.

Reflecting the entirety of Bruce’s career, The 50th Birthday Concerts includes a smorgasbord of rock, blues, and jazz music including many gems from the Cream songbook like “Sunshine of Your Love” (featuring Bruce’s legendary bass riff), “White Room,” “Politician,” and “Spoonful,” as well as the classic “Theme From An Imaginary Western,” from Bruce’s 1969 solo debut Songs For A Tailor. A number of previously unreleased songs that have been sitting in the archives will be included on the new set, including versions of “Blues You Can’t Lose” and the acoustic “Rope Ladder To The Moon,” and alternative performances of other songs.

The 50th Birthday Concerts is a fitting tribute to one of the rock music world’s essential talents, and for those unfamiliar with Jack Bruce’s enormous musical legacy, it’s also a good place to discover an incredible artist.

Buy the DVD/CD set at Amazon.com: Jack Bruce's The 50th Birthday Concerts