During Def Leppard's period of 1980s pop dominance, it might not have been apparent that frontman Joe Elliott carried a torch for early- to mid-1970s British glam/glitter rock. But the Lepps cut their teeth on T. Rex, David Bowie and Mott the Hoople, the inexplicable weirdness of which made a very big impression on a youngster in Georgetown, Indiana, as viewed in the pages of Circus magazine -- available on the news rack at the Floyd Central Thriftway.
The problem was that no one I knew at the time had any interest in the phenomenon, and I could barely afford Circus itself, much less LPs that weren't always easy to find, and so it was many years before I was able to listen to the music in any comprehensive way. Mott the Hoople was and is an object of fascination, probably because singer/writer Ian Hunter was (and is) one of the all-time great rock lyricists. Mott the Hoople's rhythm and blues roots were another key element of the band's distinctive sound, and overall, its early 1970s albums are a soundtrack of sorts to the pre-Thatcherite period of British malaise.
In 2011, I gave a nod to the first Down 'n' Outz release, which covered and anthologized key tracks coming from the bands that followed in the wake of Mott the Hoople's breakup,
"Career," by Mott via Joe Elliott.
Elliott and his "special project" colleagues from the Quireboys returned in 2014 with The Further Adventures of ... , which goes back to the egg and covers Mott the Hoople, concentrating on album tracks sans the numbers even casual listeners already know (cue "All the Young Dudes").
The result is a celebration, wherein old people play youthful music, as heard by geezers of equal longevity wishing they were listening while seated in a snug somewhere with a pint of freshly drawn Ordinary Bitter. In short, rather like another of my well chosen albums this year.
Roger's Year in Music 2014: Going Back Home, by Wilko Johnson and Roger Daltrey.
Now the trick is to make it back to the UK.
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