{"id":10824,"date":"2018-06-24T19:45:07","date_gmt":"2018-06-24T19:45:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/?p=10824"},"modified":"2018-06-24T19:45:29","modified_gmt":"2018-06-24T19:45:29","slug":"ian-hunter-talks-to-bbc-radio-1s-johnnie-walker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/10824-ian-hunter-talks-to-bbc-radio-1s-johnnie-walker.html","title":{"rendered":"Ian Hunter talks to BBC Radio 1’s Johnnie Walker"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ian Hunter is in the UK for a Mott the Hoople reunion gig and did an interview with long-time BBC DJ Johnnie Walker, on the nostalgia show Sounds of the Seventies. If you are in the UK you can listen to it here<\/a> for a limited time. The show is two hours long but the actual interview only around fifteen minutes (excluding the music).<\/p>\n

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Hunter does a few interviews and I find them somewhat frustrating in general, because he always tends to get asked the same questions, and especially about the time when David Bowie gave Mott the Hoople a song (All the Young Dudes) to revive their career. Hunter is always patient but I wish he would be quizzed more often about the rest of his long career. Still, he is promoting a Mott the Hoople reunion so I guess it was not inappropriate on this occasion.<\/p>\n

The Ian Hunter section opened with Wizzard\u2019s See My Baby Jive, a hit single in May 1973 and chosen by Hunter. Why? \u201cIt was at a time when there wasn\u2019t too much good stuff about,\u201d he said. \u201cI was getting disenchanted when all of a sudden that came out, it was brilliant, absolutely brilliant.\u201d You can certainly hear the influence in songs like The Golden Age of Rock \u2018n Roll on Mott the Hoople\u2019s 1974 album.<\/p>\n

Walker asked about Hunter\u2019s early years, when he won a talent competition in Butlin\u2019s holiday camp, which kicked off a spell in a band called the Apex Group in the fifties. Then Hunter mentions performing in Hamburg with Freddie Lee, who told him he might have a future as a songwriter but \u201cdon\u2019t ever sing \u2018em\u201d. Ha ha.<\/p>\n

Then Bob Dylan came along, says Walker. \u201cBob was like the character singer,\u201d said Hunter, \u201cif it hadn\u2019t been for him a lot of people like myself would never have got a shot. It was like a personality way of singing.\u201d<\/p>\n

We move on to the beginnings of Mott the Hoople and how Guy Stevens chose Ian Hunter as the singer of a band he was signing to Island Records, in place of Stan Tippins who became tour manager. \u201cGuy was amazing. He was frustrated because he couldn\u2019t do it himself, but he had the taste.\u201d<\/p>\n

Skipping a few years, we move on to Bowie and how Mott turned down Suffragette City, then went to hear All the Young Dudes. \u201cDavid sat on the floor and he played All the Young Dudes on acoustic guitar\u201d. Why did Bowie give away such a great song? Apparently he had been tinkering with it and it was not quite working. \u201cHe kinda got fed up with it,\u201d said Hunter, \u201cit needed new blood.\u201d<\/p>\n

A chat about the new reunion with Ariel Bender and Morgan Fisher follows. \u201cWe got together twice before but it was the original band. This is the second part of the band and they never got a shot to play on those two reunions. I always felt it was a shame, so now they get their moment in the sun,\u201d said Hunter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ian Hunter is in the UK for a Mott the Hoople reunion gig and did an interview with long-time BBC DJ Johnnie Walker, on the nostalgia show Sounds of the Seventies. If you are in the UK you can listen to it here for a limited time. The show is two hours long but the … Continue reading Ian Hunter talks to BBC Radio 1’s Johnnie Walker<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1074,1078,1518],"tags":[1106,1111],"class_list":["post-10824","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ian-hunter","category-mott-the-hoople","category-music","tag-ian-hunter-2","tag-mott-the-hoople"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10824","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10824"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10824\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10826,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10824\/revisions\/10826"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}