A cheapo Music For Pleasure compilation that my Dad used to have a copy of but that arguably contains some of the greatest pop music created in the 1960’s. Roy Wood was a musical pioneer back then and I’ll take The Move’s ’60’s singles over those of many more feted British groups of the time.

The Move had formed out of various Beat groups playing around Birmingham and the Midlands, Roy Wood From Mike Sheridan & The Nightriders, Carl Wayne and Bev Bevan from Carl Wayne & The Vikings, Trevor Burton from Danny King & The Mayfair Set and Chris “Ace” Kefford, well, I’m not sure but it’s said he was inspired to form The Move after seeing the future David Bowie in his band Davy Jones & The Lower Third at the Cedar Club in Birmingham. The idea was to gather together the best musicians in Brum into one band. They began playing covers of American bands and Motown until Roy Wood began to write. He eventually wrote all of their 9 Top 20 singles, 6 of which are on this album.

It begins with “Flowers In The Rain”, the first record played on Radio One (two pieces of music were played before it, George Martin's specially commissioned "Theme One" and Johnny Dankworth's "Beefeaters" which was Tony Blackburn’s theme tune, but “Flowers In The Rain” the first record played) . It reached #2 in the UK charts but due to a publicity stunt by the bands manager, Tony Secunda, involving Prime Minister Harold Wilson, his secretary and an ensuing court case, all Roy Woods royalties from the song went to Wilson (who, in his defence, passed them on to charity)!

Their first and only #1 was “Blackberry Way” in 1968/69. Singer Carl Wayne refused to sing it so vocals are handled by Roy Wood. The song didn’t sit well with Trevor Burton either who left the band shortly after its release. Fortunately Roy Wood did like it, saying it is his favourite Move song of all time, claiming that “it could have been performed in any era and still worked”. As it has been covered in the ensuing years by Italian band Equipe 84, Gary Holton (of the Heavy Metal Kids and “Auf Wiedersehn Pet”) and The Wonder Stuff it appears he was right.

The Move continued into 1972 when they metamorphed into Electric Light Orchestra. They left behind some superb music, singles like “I Can Hear The Grass Grow”, “Fire Brigade” and “Curly” and others on this album like “(Here We Go Round) The Lemon Tree”, “Omnibus” and “Beautiful Daughter” are very intricate pop music and reasons why I’ll take The Move over many other of their contemporaries (oh, and them being Brummies helps).

Fire Brigade - https://youtu.be/cHolSj-ocNI?si=dtQm1hdtbe0dJ3CW

Another of those weird Sainsbury’s exclusives. 2 LP’s on Orange vinyl featuring 21 of Mott’s singles and key album tracks.

After 4 albums for Island with not a sniff of success David Bowie helped Mott The Hoople (their name was taken from an obscure 1966 novel by Willard Manus about Norman Mott who works in a freak show and his adventures with Hoople’s, or normal people) get their first hit with “All The Young Dudes”, and what a song that is. It’s rumoured that Bowie regretted giving it away almost as soon as he had and Mott made it their song so he couldn’t really claim it back. Lyrical sidenote is that Bowie once said that “the news” that the Dudes were carrying was the same news that the News guy wept about in “Five Years” on “…Ziggy Stardust…”.

Mott then ran with it and released a superb bunch of singles through 1973 and 1974. “Honaloochie Boogie”, “All The Way From Memphis”,  “Roll Away The Stone”, “The Golden Age Of Rock ‘n’ Roll”, “Foxy Foxy”, “Saturday Gigs”, a great run and all on this compilation. Alongside those singles we have key album tracks and other stuff. Outside those we’ve already mentioned over the last 2 albums we have the anthemic “One Of The Boys” (also a single but shockingly not a hit), “Sea Diver” (orchestrated by Mick Ronson) and the sleaze rock of “Jerkin’ Crocus” all from the album “All The Young Dudes” plus “Rose”, the B-side of “Honaloochie Boogie”.

Mott were great, this record is Orange and if you need a place to start finding out how great Mott were, this would be it.

One Of The Boys - https://youtu.be/h5MvCYKjHvU?si=-y-jdSiZPDf4Ij5b

“The Hoople” is Mott The Hoople’s follow up to “Mott” (see what they did there). Between the recording of “Mott” and “The Hoople” guitarist Mick Ralphs left the band (to help form Bad Company) to be replaced by former Spooky Tooth guitarist Luther Grosvenor who, for the purposes of this gig, changed his name to the much more Glam Ariel Bender (allegedly because he had a habit of bending the ariel’s on cars when drunk). It was also the last Mott The Hoople album to feature singer Ian Hunter before he embarked on a solo career.

Hunter delivered two more top 20 singles in “Roll Away The Stone” (#8) and “The Golden Age Of Rock ‘n’ Roll” (#16). This album version of “Roll Away The Stone” has Ariel Bender on guitar whereas the single version was Mick Ralphs final contribution before leaving. Oh and the girls voice responding to  the spoken “There’s a Rockabilly party on Saturday night…” part on this album version is future failed UK Eurovision entrant (OK she finished 2nd) Lynsey De Paul who was probably more famous for her beauty spot than any of her music.

Hunter wrote all but one song (“Born Late ’58” was written by Overend Watts) and supplies songs across his whole range of styles. We get the two Glam singles we already mentioned, the theatrical set piece of “Marionette”, proto-punk in ”Crash Street Kids” and I’m pretty sure many a BritPoop combo was more than familiar with “Pearl ‘n’ Roy (England)” and its barroom swagger.

Rolling Stone magazine (I think I’ve made my views on them clear before) panned this album calling these songs “debased replicas” of those on previous album “Mott”, once again they were so spectacularly wrong it’s a wonder the rag lasted this long ! “The Hoople” is a glamtastic British Rock record and not many have ever been able to do it as well as Mott the Hoople did.

(Artwork trivia…the girl on the cover is Norwegian model Kari-Ann Moller (with the bands faces in her hair) who also adorns the cover of Roxy Music’s debut album. These days she is married to Chris Jagger, Micks bro’.)

Pearl ‘n’ Roy (England) - https://youtu.be/cD0OkfuyhyY?si=LfFXQc7mNU4dVI9B