Mick Ralphs, guitarist with Mott the Hoople and Bad Company among others, died last week. He apparently left Mott the Hoople as the songs he was writing were not suited to singer Ian Hunter’s voice.
They found a compatible home with Paul Rodgers, though, when they formed Bad Company along with Simon Kirke and Boz Burrell.
This is a live version of their first hit, which Ralphs wrote.
Bad Company: Can’t Get Enough
Michael Geoffrey (Mick) Ralphs: 31/3/1944 – 23/6/2025. So it goes.
Brian James, founder member of punk rock band The Damned, died on 3/3/2025. Punk rock wasn’t really my thing but it was undeniably a significant part of the late 1970s musically.
This song, written by James, wasn’t a hit in the UK but is very familiar from radio play in the years since.
Brian Robertson (aka Brian James ) 18/2/1955 – 6/3/2025. So it goes.
Singer Roberta Flack died earlier this week. Her signature style was reserve, not flamboyance or over-indulgence, and her records were the better for it.
Not her biggest UK hit (that would be Killing Me Softly With His Song) but her first. An all-but perfect rendering of a song Kirsty’s dad Ewan McColl wrote for Peggy Seeger.
Roberta Flack: The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face
Roberta Cleopatra Flack: 10/2/1937 – 24/2/2025. So it goes.
Perhaps his most distinctive performance was his double bass line for Lou Reed’s Walk on the Wild Side but that could be matched by the innovation on David Essex’s Rock On.
Lou Reed: Walk on the Wild Side
David Essex: Rock On
Brian Keith (Herbie) Flowers: 19/5/1938 – 5/9/2024. So it goes.
Stealers Wheel weren’t just Gerry Rafferty’s backing band. Joe Egan, who has died, was his fellow front man and wrote many of their songs himself as well as co-writing their most famous hit Stuck in the Middle With You with Rafferty.
He was a mainstay of The Electric Light Orchestra (ELO) being Jeff Lynne’s right hand man in the group.
I note that the lyrics scrolling along the bottom of this video misrepresent the last vocoded words (which apparently Tandy voiced.) They are not “Mr Blue Sky” but instead “Please turn me over.” Mr Blue Sky was the last track on side three of the album Out of the Blue.