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Mott the Hoople albums:
The Original Mixed-Up Kids

The BBC Recordings

Whiskey Women (Mick Ralphs)
Darkness Darkness (Jesse Colin Young)
The Moon Upstairs (Ian Hunter/Mick Ralphs)
The Original Mixed-up Kid (Ian Hunter)
Thunderbuck Ram (Mick Ralphs)
Your Own Backyard (live) (Dimucci)
Death May Be Your Santa Claus (live) (Ian Hunter/Verden Allen)
Darkness Darkness (live) (Jesse Colin Young)
The Moon Upstairs (live) (Ian Hunter/Mick Ralphs)
Whiskey Women (live) (Mick Ralphs)
The Journey (live) (Ian Hunter)

Windsong WINCD 084 released in UK August 1996

Recorded by Line-up 1

Credits
Mott Road Manager - Stan Tippins
Mott Roadies - Ritchie Anderson, Phil John
BBC DJs - John Peel, Brian Matthew, Mike Harding, Pete Drummond, Andy Dinkley
BBC (engineers?) - Phil Lawton, Anthony Pugh
BBC Producers - John Walters, Malcolm Brown

Half Moon Bay says... It is so good to finally hear exactly what I missed by being born late in '58. For if I had been five years older, I surely would have gone to see them in this incarnation. They sound extraordinarily good, even by todays standards. Elsewhere in Half Moon Bay, I suggest that after Ralphs left the band they lost an arm and a leg. Well, on this evidence Phally was the other leg and his departure was more important than anyone could have seen at the time.

The first batch of tracks are from sessions for various radio programmes and Brian Matthews - the same Brain Matthews as can be heard introducing Beatles numbers on their own 'Live at the Beeb' - is featured enthusing about the heaviness of the band, and telling us that "...the next number, penned by the groups organist Mick Ralph..." (Sic.).

The second batch are all from a live Radio One In Concert concert from December 1971 and are breathtaking. You can see why people and history tell us that the live feel of the band never quite made it onto record; 'The Moon Upstairs' being a case in point.

They are the only eleven surviving tracks from approximately 32 tracks recorded for the corporation from February 1970 to October 1972. The BBC used to discard a lot of stuff in those days - radio and tv - including much of Peter Cook and Dudley Moore's classic comedy.

Anyway, the sleeve notes are great and for now, I will not try to do the excellent job they already do. They have been put together by Campbell Devine and taken from the forthcoming book 'Mott the Hoople, Ian Hunter and Mick Ronson - The Authorised and Definitive Biography'. We wait with bated breath. (The wait is over...)

Buy this record. On this evidence Mott the Hoople really were up there with them all - as Guy Stevens had told them. They knocked The Who for six and made the Stones sound like old men...

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