Old Enough to Forget

Your Mama Won't Like Me was released in 1975 and was her third album in three years, as well as the follow-up to '74s Quatro. Yes, I know most of that sentence is clunky, but it says what I wanted it to say. Once again she partnered with Mike Chapman and Nicky Chinn, who produced the album and wrote three of the songs. The balance of the material was written by Suzi and Len Tuckey, except for the cover of "Fever," initially made famous by Peggy Lee and since covered by everyone from Elvis to Madonna. Suzi's band was still anchored by Suzi on bass and Len Tuckey on guitar. Dave Neal was on drums, and Alastair McKenzie was on keys. This was the same lineup as 1974's Quatro . It's strange they weren't credited on the cover ... I guess we were supposed to recognize them from their pictures. Speaking of credits, the album didn't have a lot of them, but they included Chris Mercer (tenor sax), Mick Eve (tenor sax), Steve Gregory (tenor sax), Bud Beadle (b...

Suzi ... and Other Four Letter Words was another in a long line of Mike Chapman produced albums for Suzi Quatro. It's a mystery as to how Mr. Chapman found the time to work in Suzi when he had been working with The Knack and then Blondie on their breakthrough albums that same year. I never really kept up with Suzi Quatro in real time. I was less than a casual fan and aside from when I heard "Devil Gate Drive" as a kid, didn't know any of her songs. The little AM station in my small town seemed to play it over and over back in 1974. Of course, the reality was this all likely happened over the course of a week ... but hey, time is different when you're young. Other than Happy Days and that one song I really didn't know much about her, other than she looked good in black leather. 1979 was the height of new wave (disco was still huge too, but let's pretend it wasn't), Suzi Quatro dropped a glam infused collection of tight pop songs that were honestly a ta...

Ladies and gentlemen, MUD. I had no idea these guys existed until the early '90s, when one Christmas I saw Bernard and the Genie . It's probably the greatest holiday movie ever. With Lenny Henry and Alan Cumming and an incredibly nasty Rowan Atkinson. I taped the movie from the television broadcast, and for years and years we'd re-watch our spotty copy, complete with the cheesy commercials. The soundtrack to the Richard Curtis film was absolutely amazing, and among the many, many classics was "Lonely This Christmas" by MUD. Okay, to be fair, I didn't know who sang the song at the time, but I really, really liked it. When I found a CD called Instant Christmas Collection that featured a lot of UK artists I finally knew, there was MUD. Of course it was produced by the kings of Glam, Nicky Chinn & Mike Chapman. Goodness gravy, them there two dudes were a gold-spinning dynamic duo. Oh, the remake, simply called Genie with Melissa McCarthy ... um. Pass. I trie...

Sweet was always a weird band for me to categorize. Were they hard rock? Were they glam? Were they just a Chinnichap bubblegum act? I mean, these were the guys who rocked my world as a kid with "Ballroom Blitz" and melted my face with "Fox on the Run," both from the North American version of Desolation Boulevard on Capitol Records. Much later I heard "Little Willy" and couldn't reconcile that this was the same band. It was written by Mike Chapman and Nicky Chinn, names I'd later associate with an awful lot of really questionable glam-tinged rock, and some face-melting goodness. They were the kings of bubblegum glam, but they were so much more than that. However, let's be honest, "Little Willy" is just a head scratcher, but "Ballroom Blitz" was sheer wonderfulness, and the stuff they did with Suzi Quatro was wicked. To me, Sweet were a hard rock act. I had no idea what glam was as a kid. Music was either good or it wasn'...