RIP Ramsey Lewis/Mott the Hoople's Mott (1973)

RIP Ramsey Lewis

His easy-going style brought jazz—and joy—into the lives of many casual listeners

Though he didn't use a ring modulator or play with an army of electric guitarists, Ramsey Lewis was one of the more popular jazz musicians of the mid 1960s and helped bridge the gap between gospel, blues, soul, jazz, and rock/fusion experiments. Though he played a lot of straightforward jazz, Lewis is best known for his gospel and blues-inflected pop tunes with a heavy backbeat, such as "The 'In' Crowd", "A Hard Day's Night", and "Hang On Sloopy". At the same time alto saxophonist Julian "Cannonball" Adderley, who had first come to the public's attention as a Charlie Parker-style bop saxophone whiz was demonstrating a heavy soul and gospel influence with his famous Quintet, using such music to connect with an audience and expose them to more straightforward small group jazz sounds. Both Lewis and Adderley had huge chart-topping hits at a time when jazz was by and large unable to connect with the larger pop audience.

‘Kufanya Mapenzi’ from Funky Serenity—maybe my favorite Ramsey Lewis track

The Ramsey Lewis trio always included a popular song in their repertoire that could hook a crowd of largely non-jazz listeners, including a jazz version of the operatic "Carmen" and the bluesy "Blues for the Night Owl". While these garnered some airplay and made the R&B; charts, the breakthrough was a recording of Dobie Gray's "The 'In' Crowd" recorded live at The Bohemian Caverns in Washington, D.C. and released on the The 'In' Crowd album.

Between 1964 and 1976 Lewis placed 19 singles on the pop charts utilizing this style that he referred to as "jazz, R&B;, pop and gospel all rolled into one." The trio was awarded a Grammy for Best Instrumental Recording of 1965. Other hits in the same vein included "Since I Fell For You", "A Hard Day's Night", "Something You Got", "Hang on Sloopy", and "High Heel Sneakers".

All of these songs utilize simple elements: well worn blues riffs, a strong backbeat, plagal cadences, a party atmosphere (provided by club audiences who clap and at times even sing along with the performance), and familiar tunes. Harmonic sophistication and technical wizardry were not the point of these performances, as Lewis himself pointed out: "The most intricate chord in the whole thing, I think, is a seventh" he told Downbeat.

As so often happens, the sudden success of the trio brought about dissention, and the group was unable to stay together, with "High Heel Sneakers" being their last chart success together. Lewis knew he had something, though, and he formed a new trio with bassist Cleveland Eaton and Maurice White, who went on to found funk/rock group Earth, Wind, and Fire, on drums.

The group was able to repeat the previous trio's success with recordings of Stevie Wonder's "Uptight (Everything's Alright)" and the gospel standard "Wade In the Water". The album also featured soul numbers like Marvin Gaye's "Ain't That Peculiar" and "Tobacco Road". Lewis continued to move in a pop, soul, and funk direction with his music, creating some of the more interesting funk/fusion albums of the early 1970s, Funky Serenity and Sun Goddess, which again featured the work of Maurice White along with his brother Verdine. Ramsey more recently recorded some gospel work with a full chorus and his 1999 album Appassionata brought him back to a trio format and incorporated all the elements and styles he's worked with over the years quite successfully.

Dizzy Gillespie once commented that Lewis was, in fact, playing fusion music way ahead of the electronic experiments that the word conjures in most of our minds, and I don't think Gillespie was too far off.

Four years ago I wrote a deep dive into the creation of Ramsey Lewis’ album Sun Goddess, on which he collaborated with Maurice and Verdine White. The piece discusses the careers of Lewis and Earth, Wind & Fire leading up to Sun Godess as well as the deep explorations of funk that Lewis followed it up with. Read Sun Goddess here.

Mott the Hoople: Mott (1973)

Their best, and maybe the most interesting glam-influenced record of all time

It’s 1973, and Mott the Hoople have taken the trip up rock's Lucky Charms rainbow to discover the pot of gold on the other side. After a hard scrabble start that saw the band go from hard rockers to confused rockers, to hard chaotic rockers, to a Dylan and the Band inspired one off, they contemplated tossing it all in, Badfinger style. Then, with no time to spare, in swooped David Bowie anod his Main Man production company, and Mott joined the ranks of Iggy Pop and Lou Reed as a Bowie production. Now the band is on Top of the Pops singing "All The Young Dudes," their most famous song and album and riding the glam rock train to stardom.

In the meantime, lead singer Ian Hunter has been revving up his songwriting skills, producing some good songs for All The Young Dudes. But it turns out he's got some big statements to make and the band is ready to settle into some harder rock again, with the sheen of glam tossed over the proceedings like a discarded crinoline. What results is perhaps the only mature production to have the imprint of glam rock, with the topic being less rock & roll suicide and more rock & roll burnout. For Hunter takes as his thesis, not the rise and fall of Ziggy or Alvin Stardust, but the reminiscences of a seasoned veteran, sometimes bored, sometimes outraged, sometimes on the verge of cashing it all in.

It's a pretty heavy lift to believe this level of ennui and jaded weariness could befall a band by its sixth studio album, though Mott the Hoople had indeed seen other bands with half as much commitment and even less talent pass them by on the autobahn of fame. But Hunter makes it stick; in fact he would make a solo career of it in just a couple of short years.

Take the opener, "All the Way From Memphis." A little story about the narrator losing his guitar while on tour and finding it trashed when he finally catches up with it, the song opens with Hunter banging on the piano like John Cale on a bender, the rhythm section kicking in and then some honking sax backup courtesy of Roxy Music's Andy Mackay before Hunter delivers his opening verse, swinging into what seems like an inevitable chorus:

Now it's a mighty long way down rock 'n' roll

Through the Bradford cities and the oreoles

'n you look like a star but you're still on the dole

All the way from Memphis

A bunch of folks were introduced to Mott the Hoople for the first time when this track was used in the soundtrack to Martin Scorsese's 1974 film Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore.

The song continues on, sounding a bit like an outtake from Moondog Matinee, Mackay's horn becoming more and more unhinged, wailing like pop music's Illinois Jacquet and Hunter riffing on that chorus like Lou Reed ("you look like a star/but you're really out on parole," "gotta stay young man, you can never be old"). Finally, here on the opener of their sixth studio album, Mott the Hoople finds that place that is them, just as surely as the Stones and Faces found that sweet spot where it all came together. 

Two tracks from Side One, "Whizz Kid" and "Honaloochee Boogie" satisfy the Bolan/Bowie quotient of sparkle for the record. And they are sumptuous delicacies indeed. The former has the vibe of beat poetry, but it's glam poetry instead, with all the dignity that Marc Bolan could summon and a lyrical turn that carries all the pathos of Ray Davies' best couplets: "Send you victorious, happy and glorious/You got the stardust, the sawdust, and the smile."

"Honaloochee Boogie" could have come from Diamond Dogs or Aladdin Sane but it has a playfulness that eludes Bowie on either of those albums, great as they are. It was selected as the group's follow-up single to "All the Young Dudes" and it made it to #12 UK singles chart position. Mackay plays sax again, and the track also features Bill Price on Moog synthesizer and the ubiquitous Paul Buckminster on cello. And a cool roboto effect on some of Hunter's vocals that make him sound like a demented game show host. Trust me, this is what the diamond dogs are listening to in their skyscrapers.

The album revolves around two large, dramatic, autobiographical tracks: "Hymn to the Dudes" and "The Ballad of Mott the Hoople." "Hymn to the Dudes" speaks to the same audience as "All the Young Dudes", but instead of an anthem it reaches out to their brokenness and confusion while at the same time taking a poke at the notion that a rock superstar (Bowie?) could ever be just 'one of the kids':

'Cause if you think you are a star

For so long they'll come from near and far

But you'll forget just who you are (yes you will)

You ain't the nazz

You're just a buzz

Some kinda temporary...

"The Ballad of Mott the Hoople" references the day in Zurich when the band was seriously planning to call it quits and is the ultimate world weary anthem on Mott. "Rock and roll's a loser's game" sings Hunter, "it mesmerizes and I can't explain...the rock and roll circus is in town." The record that most closely matches Mott's bookend ballads that tie the band and its audience together as victims of rock's world of illusion while at the same time protecting them like a magic talisman is the Kinks' 1978 record Misfits. 

And these are merely the highlights. You also get the insane rave-up "Violence" that takes "All the Young Dudes" deep into Anthony Burgess droog territory, "Drivin' Sister," a standard issue Mott rocker that became popular live, Mick Ralph's "I'm a Cadillac/El Camino Dolo Rosa," a harbinger of his Bad Company work, and the closer, "I Wish I Was Your Mother," another Hunter ballad, this time with a Dylanesque vibe. 

In his 1973 piece on Mott for Creem titled "The Ballad of Mott the Hoople" Ben Edmonds wrote: "Through all the changes and complications, Mott has always been honest with the people who paid their money to see them perform. This relationship has allowed them to see exactly what the needs of their audience have been, and they’ve always done their best to fulfill them."

Give Mott a listen if you haven't previously heard it, or maybe give it a revisit. I think you'll find it an enjoyable listen.