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IAN HUNTER might have started as a glam-rock icon, but his soul remains trend-proof.
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YEARS OF EXISTENCE: 1969-'74 with Mott The Hoople; solo artist since 1975 YEARS OF DECENT EXISTENCE: Coin toss. BEST RECORDS: Ian Hunter (1975), Overnight Angels (1977), You're Never Alone With A Schizophrenic (1979), All The Good Ones Are Taken (1983), YUI Orta (1990), Rant (2001) WORST RECORDS: All American Alien Boy (1976), Short Back N' Sides (1981), Dirty Laundry (1995) GO DOWNLOAD: "Once Bitten Twice Shy," "I Get So Excited," "You Nearly Did Me In," "Justice Of The Piece," "Cleveland Rocks," "Bastard," "Speechless," "Traitor" FILE UNDER: Bards Of Working-Class Poetry SIMILAR-SOUNDING DINOSAURS: Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty, Ray Davies THE MUSIC: Hunter may have gotten attention as the frontman/chief songwriter in '70s British glam-rock act Mott The Hoople, but the closest he came to fashionable transvestisism was the occasional frilly sleeved shirt. When he left the very successful Mott, he embarked on a solo career filled with records containing both full-on bar-rock fury and misfires, but they were always honest. With guitarist/right-hand man Mick Ronson, Hunter pretty much set the bar for singer/songwriters in the '70s, bringing balls with his ballads and brains with his boogie. WHAT THEY SAY: "One of the toughest and most inventive hard-rock singers of the early '70s, setting the stage for punk rock with his edgy, intelligent songs." -AllMusic Guide To Rock WHAT I SAY: Hunter has always had a loyal audience because he's been able to temper his cockiness with a sense of humility and self-deprecation that's downright poetic. (Does that make him proto-emo?) He also influenced and embraced punk both spiritually (Overnight Angels) and literally (producing Generation X's second album, Valley Of The Dolls) at a time when a lot of scared career rockers were dismissing the genre entirely. Oh, yeah: Drew Carey sucks for using a Presidents Of The United States Of America cover of "Cleveland Rocks" for his television show, instead of Hunter's original. WHY YOUR (GRAND)PARENTS LIKE THEM: Your 'rents weren't that cool-they probably sucked face to Barry Manilow's cover of Hunter's "Ships" before discovering the real thing. But if they smoked a lot of cigs and drank cheap beer while blasting records by Springsteen and the Iron City Houserockers, they know the greatness of Hunter. Consider yourself lucky. CURRENT WHEREABOUTS: Hunter recently signed to Yep Roc for a new album, Shrunken Heads, which features the participation of Wilco CEO Jeff Tweedy. While some of his current sentiments might be of no interest to anyone under, say, 30, Hunter is fearless enough to go forward creatively, without having to wedge himself into his old Mott stagewear or ride his catalog into the sunset. Really, do you think that in 2007 the Rolling Stones would write a song like "I Am What I Hated When I Was Young?" -Jason Pettigrew |
