Iconic Rocker Ian Hunter To Play Palace Benefit Memorial

By John Voket

He may have penned the infectious classic rock hit “Once Bitten, Twice Shy,” but former Mott the Hoople frontman Ian Hunter said he doesn’t let the prospect of producing a modestly selling album keep him from returning over and over again to the songwriting process.

In a recent chat with The Newtown Bee, Hunter talked about some of his experiences in the recording industry past and present, and his firm commitment to continuing to do the thing he does best — writing and singing his songs — no matter what the music buying public or the music industry thinks.

Hunter will be bringing his diverse repertoire including hits like “All the Way From Memphis,” “Cleveland Rocks” and “All the Young Dudes,” into Danbury’s Palace Theater on Friday, September 17. The show is billed as a benefit to celebrate the life of Stevie Buccini, who, according to the event’s organizers, “bravely battled cancer for two years until July 7, 2010, when he finally succumbed to the disease at the far-too-young age of 40” just eight weeks ago.

This one night only event will be supported by special guests The Doug Wahlberg Band, which is based in Newtown and Danbury. Hunter said he was given the opportunity to perform this special benefit through some mutual friends, and because he know Buccini himself.

“I met Rick Tedesco in 1995 when he worked at East Coast Music, and he’s married to Steff — and me and Trudy, my wife, have been hanging round with them for quite a while,” Hunter said. “We knew Steve because he was Steff’s brother. So Steve was living with his mom, but the hospital bills kind of got out of hand while she was taking care of him. His illness went on for almost two years, so you can imaging he left a lot of bills.”

Since Tedesco also plays with the popular regional act The Doug Wahlberg Band, when he approached Hunter to headline the benefit, the artist immediately agreed.

During his interview with The Bee, Hunter talked a bit about his long history in the music business, and the freedom he now has as a result of managing his own brand and creative output sans pressure from any major record company representatives.

A Staunch Traditionalist

Despite advances in digital recording technology, and the ability for entire album projects to be completed in pieces, virtually without any of the musicians ever being in the same room at the same time, Hunter still fancies himself a “traditionalist by nature.”

“I’ve got a great band, so we just go in and get it done,” Hunter said of his backing outfit, The Rant Band. “The less time we can spend in the studio the better.”

He lamented some of the ways the recording process, and the recording business, has changed since he was “a young lad jumping about to Elvis Presley.”

“All the way through, the labels have always been there,” Hunter said. “But before they became corporate, they were very entrepreneurial ... quite individual. In the days of Mott the Hoople, we made four albums before anything started to happen. Nowadays, that would never be allowed to happen — you’d be fired if you didn’t have a hit with the first one.”

Born in Oswestry, Shropshire, and fuelled musically by the likes of Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis, Ian Hunter Patterson played in various bands throughout the ‘60s, including The New Yardbirds and, as a bass player, backed Billy Fury, Freddie Fingers Lee, The Young Idea and David McWilliams.

He also worked as a journalist and staff songwriter for one of the largest publishers of popular music in the world, Francis Day and Hunter of New York, before joining the Herefordshire band Silence in 1969. That band was renamed Mott The Hoople by mentor and producer Guy Stevens, and Hunter became the group’s vocalist, principal songwriter and focal point with visually striking corkscrew hair and omnipresent dark glasses.

With David Bowie’s “All The Young Dudes” as the launchpad, Mott The Hoople hit superstar status between 1972 and 1974 with seven hit singles and four chart albums, being the first rock band to sell out a week of Broadway concerts in New York’s theatre district, and Hunter’s penning of the universally acclaimed book Diary of a Rock n’ Roll Star.

Various personnel changes in Mott The Hoople over that period ended with the recruitment of the highly talented Mick Ronson as lead guitarist. But personality clashes and strains within the group resulted in its demise after Hunter suffered a physical breakdown in the USA, subsequently trading the safety of Mott the Hoople for unknown and risk-laden solo territory.

An Influence To Many

Hunter has been cited as a major inspiration and reference point for numerous bands including the Clash, Kiss, Def Leppard, REM, Motley Crüe, Blur and Oasis. Hunter’s influence has remained incalculable, as there are now over 50 different cover versions of his songs from artists as diverse as Great White, The Presidents of the United States of America, Status Quo, Blue Oyster Cult, Bonnie Tyler, Barry Manilow, The Pointer Sisters, Willie Nelson, Thunder and The Monkees.

Saying today’s modern music reflects the product-oriented nature of the corporate conglomerates that manufacture it, Hunter thinks there is still a lot of unexplored territory on the Internet. But in his mind, it’s still the full album project that can best showcase new artists, as well as veterans like himself.

“I still like the traditional idea of making whole albums versus one track, or part of a track that gets repeated over and over,” he said. “I think an album is a much better illustration of what one person can do at a point in time. If you’re only gonna put one track down, you’re just gonna have a nation of singles – one quirk that gets you through.”

According to Hunter, he’s done good albums and bad albums – but like a diary, the albums he has made are illustrations of what an artist goes through during his or her life. At the same time, knowing when it’s time to make a new album is random.

“The whole idea of a song is rather like an invention, it’s more about getting the idea before you even approach the song. Nobody’s happier than a writer with an idea,” Hunter said.

He recalled working with songwriter John Cale of The Velvet Underground on one occasion, and likened Cale to an endless fountain of musical ideas.

“Inspiration helps, it sparks you, there’s nothing like working with an artist that has music coming out of every pore of their bodies,” Hunter said. “John’s not a particularly huge artist, but there’s something magical coming out of him.”

Hunter said there are a lot of artists out there who run around the tree, and there are some artists who are the tree.

“People who run ‘round the tree may have the ability to sell millions of records, but it doesn’t mean to say they’re the tree. There are artists out there who don’t sell many records, but they’re the real thing,” Hunter said. “I’m not knocking selling millions of records, but with a lot of them it’s just marketing.”

Doors to The Palace Theater, at 165 Main Street in Danbury, will open at 7 pm on September 17. The Doug Wahlberg Band will begin the evening with a set at 8, followed by Ian Hunter’s performance.

Tickets are $45, and can be purchased through the theater’s website (www.ThePalaceDanbury.com) or by contacting the box office at 203-794-9944.