Luther Grosvenor
Floodgates Anthology

Evesham Boy (Luther Grosvenor/John Ledsom)
Best Years Of My Life (Luther Grosvenor/John Ledsom)
Floodgates (Luther Grosvenor/John Ledsom)
Fullness of Time (Mike Kellie)
I Wanna Be Free (Joe Tex)
Ninsky Prospect (Luther Grosvenor/John Ledsom)
Loneliest Man In Town (Luther Grosvenor/John Ledsom)
Fire Down Below (Bob Seger)
Cathy (Dave Moore)
Floodgates —acoustic (Luther Grosvenor/John Ledsom)
Crying Won't Bring You Back (Peter Green)
SunshineSpooky Tooth (Karl Wallinger)
Kiss It Better Spooky Tooth (L Grosvenor, M Harrison, M Kellie, G Ridley)
How Spooky Tooth (Mike Kellie)
Pretty Colours Deep Feeling (Deep Feeling)
Here Comes The Queen (live) Mott the Hoople (Luther Grosvenor)

SJPCD088 Available in all good record stores, or by mail order from Angel Air Records

Musicians:

Tracks 1 to 10: Luther Grosvenor, Mike Kellie, Dave Moore, Steve Dolan, Jess Roden - lead vocals 5 & 8, Mick Dolan, Jim Capaldi, The Clave Brothers.

Tracks 11 and 12: Luther Grosvenor, Mike Kellie, Ariel Bender, Jess Roden, Steve Dolan, Dave Moore, Pete Brown.

Tracks 13 to 15: Luther Grosvenor, Mike Harrison, Mike Kellie, Greg Ridley with Dave Moore, Mark Feltham, Gary Oswell, Gary Lippett.

Track 16: Jim Capaldi, Luther Grosvenor, Gordon Jackson, Dave Meredith, Poli Palmer

Track 17: Mott the Hoople 3 plus Blue Weaver (organ)

Half Moon Bay says... Now, before we start, I'll admit to a bit of prejudice here: I was always a Mick Ralphs fan, so Bender had a hard act to follow back in 73 as far as I was concerned, but, Mott were my band and I was going to give him a chance.

Things haven't been helped by reading in Devines book about the murky goings on that surrounded his recruitment into the band. And, on reflection, I have come to the conclusion that Ray M would have been a better bet to be drafted in... but whoever came in, they weren't given much time at all and basically had to do a session job. To some degree, Ariel tried too hard to make his mark rather than just play the licks and settle in.

Still, never mind, water under the bridge. And I will add now that I bought and loved (and still do) the first Widowmaker stuff. And I suppose I should have taken more notice of that really.

Because the stuff in this set has come as a pleasant surprise to me and since the CD arrived, it has been played at least 2 or 3 times a day, minimum.

Luthers playing is excellent and his writing skills are pretty decent too. On that note, for Mott the Hoople completests, this has to be added to your collection for the inclusion of 'Here Comes the Queen' alone.

At the moment I really like the reunited Spooky Tooth's rendition of Wallingers 'Sunshine' (could have been a single or classic rock station radio hit), 'Evesham Boy', 'Floodgates', 'Fullness of Time' and all the classic Blues stuff, two of which 'Crying Won't Bring You Back' and 'Merry Go Round' are from the pen of Pete Green and were on the Rattlesnake Guitar compilation tributes to the former Fleetwood Mac man.

Yeah, this is good. Well crafted, well played, and extremely well presented with exhaustive, informative and entertaining notes from 'Two Miles From Heaven' editor Keith Smith.

Highly Recommended.

Review Date: May 2001