From: owner-avalon-digest@smoe.org (avalon-digest) To: avalon-digest@smoe.org Subject: avalon-digest V13 #11 Reply-To: avalon@smoe.org Sender: owner-avalon-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-avalon-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk avalon-digest Thursday, January 22 2009 Volume 13 : Number 011 Today's Subjects: ----------------- [AVALON] Rockin' Jock McPherson [Chandla911@aol.com] Re: [AVALON] Rockin' Jock McPherson [johnobrien001@aol.com] To leave the list, mail majordomo@smoe.org with: unsubscribe avalon-digest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2009 07:09:54 EST From: Chandla911@aol.com Subject: [AVALON] Rockin' Jock McPherson Doubtless you have read but I've just got round to reading All The Young Dudes - Mott The Hoople and Ian Hunter biography... "The first tracks that Mott taped for their new album were 'Honaloochie Boogie', 'Hymn For The Dudes', 'Ballad of Mott', 'Drivin' Sister' and 'Rose', the latter two introduced live for the first time on their February tour. Ian had wanted Roy Wood of Move, ELO and Wizzard fame to produce the sessions. Roy's recollection is that he was too busy at the time but he particularly remembers that Hunter liked the horn section in his band, which Wood had used to stunning effect on the hit singles 'Ball Park Incident' and 'See My Baby Jive'. On the spritely 'Honaloochie Boogie', Mott featured Paul Buckmaster on electric cello and Roxy Music's Andy Mackay on sax, in a manner reminiscent of Roy's style. Mackay was invited to gues on two Mott tracks, as Roxy were in the adjoining studio during February recording For Your Pleasure, their second album." " 'We weren't going to produce Mott initially,' says Pete [Overend Watts], 'but we went in and did 'Honaloochie Boogie'. Roxy Music came down to listen to it and they said it was a hit. We were worried about getting a producer and I think it was Andy Mackay, the sax player, who said, 'No way. You don't need a producer'. We looked up to them from a sound point of view, because they were very much into their sound. Eno was another one that said we should do it, so we thought, 'If they think we can, we'll do it'. Andy Mackay used to come and sit with us at AIR a lot, because he didn't like being in the studio with the rest of his group. Andy was really nice and tried to join us on several occasions. I got quite friendly with him and we were going to go greyhound racing at White City but it never quite happened. He did say he didn't want to be in Roxy Music anymore and could he join Mott. Sadly there was no way, because we really only needed sax on about two songs.' Hunter reveals that he also asked Mike Leander to produce Mott. 'I liked Gary Glitter's sound and I thought Leander was great. I figured it would be different for Mott The Hoople but it would be good, because he was an intelligent producer. Sadly he was too busy. I liked Roy Wood's singles, his voice and his songs. Then it was funny how Roxy all came in from AIR 1 and said we didn't need outside help. Really Mott was produced by us purely because Roxy Music wanted us to!' " "On The Hoople sessions, Mott used backing vocalists Barry St John, Sue Glover and Sunny Leslie replacing Thunderthighs, who had worked on Mott, Howie Casey and Andy Mackay played saxophones, but Andy was credited as Rockin' Jock McPherson. Howie wanted to be left off the credits, because he thought Mackay was a dreadful saxophonist and people might think it was him playing badly. Mick Ralphs was also around for several of the sessions and appeared on two tracks. 'I remember Ralpher came in one day with a picture of Bad Company from the States,' says Watts. 'It said Nick Phelps under Mick's photo wand Paul Rodgers was labelled Jock McPherson, nothing to do with his name at all. We laughed and thought it was agreat name, so we used it with Andy Mackay. Andy was unconventional, almost avant garde in his playing and Howie Casey was a pro session player, one of the old brigade, and didn't like it much. To be honest, I wasn't too keen on Andy's sax on 'All The Way From Memphis'. " Now look, I'm not taking credit but, just as I got to the part where they describe the near riot that took place at the second house of Dec 14 1973 at Hammersmith Odeon (I was there - it was brilliant), I heard the original line-up of Mott the Hoople are reforming for two nights at HMV Apollo (yuk!) in October. Tickets on sale tomorrow. Unmissable... Best wishes Richard Mills ___________________________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe, mail majordomo@smoe.org with: unsubscribe avalon ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2009 09:40:48 -0500 From: johnobrien001@aol.com Subject: Re: [AVALON] Rockin' Jock McPherson A wee bit of associated trivia to Richard's post:? Howie Casey was the guy who appeared with Roxy on Top Of The Pops when they played Oh Yeah as Andy Mackay was on holiday. J.O'B. "On The Hoople sessions, Mott used backing vocalists Barry St John, Sue Glover and Sunny Leslie replacing Thunderthighs, who had worked on Mott, Howie Casey and Andy Mackay played saxophones, but Andy was credited as Rockin' Jock McPherson. Howie wanted to be left off the credits, because he thought Mackay was a dreadful saxophonist and people might think it was him playing badly. Andy was unconventional, almost avant garde in his playing and Howie Casey was a pro session player, one of the old brigade, and didn't like it much. To be honest, I wasn't too keen on Andy's sax on 'All The Way From Memphis'. - -----Original Message----- From: Chandla911@aol.com To: avalon@smoe.org Sent: Wed, 21 Jan 2009 12:09 Subject: [AVALON] Rockin' Jock McPherson ________________________________________________________________________ AOL Email goes Mobile! You can now read your AOL Emails whilst on the move. Sign up for a free AOL Email account with unlimited storage today. ___________________________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe, mail majordomo@smoe.org with: unsubscribe avalon ------------------------------ End of avalon-digest V13 #11 **************************** ======================================================================== For further info, mail majordomo@smoe.org with: info avalon-digest