Ian Hunter - Ian Hunter: 30th Anniversary Edition Review

This was a huge album for me back in the mid-'70s, when I listened to it regularly on LP and on the 8-track in my '74 Pontiac Ventura. The album combined two English rockers at the top of their game: Ian Hunter, fresh from five years fronting Mott the Hoople, and Mick Ronson, who was coming off a five-year collaboration with David Bowie which ended after the release of Pin-Ups. The result is one of the most underrated rock ‘n' roll records ever made, and a high-water mark of ‘70s hard rock.

After all the good-byes at the end of  Mott's valedictory last single "Saturday Gigs," Hunter begins his first solo album with a spoken "'Allo" on "Once Bitten, Twice Shy," one of his most memorable compositions, later covered for a hit by Hair Metal also-rans Great  White.

Produced by Ronson and powered by his guitar pyrotechnics, the album is both his and Hunter's masterpiece, and this remastered edition sounds yards better than the Nice Price reissue of the early '90s. Unfortunately, due to management problems, the Hunter-Ronson Band was out of commission for a couple of albums (All-American Alien Boy and Ian Hunter's Overnight Angels) until '79, and the You're Never Alone With a Scizophrenic LP, which contained the rewritten Overnight Angels track "Cleveland Rocks" (originally "England Rocks") which fans of "The Drew Carey Show" will know intimately. Hunter is still making music these days, while Ronson passed away in 1993.

But back to this disc. While the extras may not be all that special, a couple of alternate mixes and the unfinished tracks "Colwater High" and "One Fine Day," which feature vocals overdubbed by Hunter 25 years later, the album itself is genius.