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Mention
the name Mud to most Americans — even those neck-deep
in the '70s revival — and the likely result will be
a blank stare. In England, however, between 1974 and 1976,
Mud were one of the hottest rock & roll acts there was,
charting a series of monster hit singles and recording a
pair of delightful oldies-oriented albums. They were never
a profoundly philosophical band, and never pretended to
be — the group played music to have a good time, and
merely asked that others join in, which millions of Brits
did for a few years.
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Their
history extended back to the middle of the previous decade.
Singer Les Gray and drummer-vocalist Dave Mount had come
out of separate groups in the Carshalton section of South
London during the mid-'60s, when they hooked up together
to form a new band of their own, which they christened Mud.
Ray Stiles (bass, vocals) and Rob Davis (lead guitar, vocals)
came aboard in 1966 and the quartet was signed to the then
fledgling CBS label (Columbia Records having only founded
its UK division in 1965, with the acquisition of the Oriole
label), for which a pair of novelty singles, "Flower
Power" and "Up the Air Mountain," stiffed
on the charts. Mud continued to play local gigs and had
enough of a following to make a living off its concert work.
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They were a solid rock & roll band with a good attack
and a clean, unpretentious sound that made for great live
performances but was difficult to translate on record. Their
stage act included a fair number of rock & roll classics,
which made them fairly unusual in a British music scene
populated by acts bent on creating a psychedelic experience
from the stage. They tried again with a pair of singles
on the Philips label in 1969-1970, but neither of these
attempts found an audience.
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Fate,
in the guise of producer Mickie Most, took a hand in the
early '70s. Most was impressed with their stage presentation
and hooked them up with the songwriting- producer team of
Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman (known corporately as Chinnichap).
They came up with "Crazy" and "Hypnosis,"
a pair of singles that made the Top 20 for the group in
1973 on Most's RAK label — this was better than any
of their previous singles had done, but still weren't representative
of the group's sound. |
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Lightning
struck a third time late 1973 when Mud inherited a Chinn/Chapman
song that had been rejected by the Sweet, called "Dyna-mite."
Driven by a crunchy "Long Cool Woman"-type guitar
intro, "Dyna-mite" was a catchy rocker that became
a top five British hit, but it also had a profound effect
on the direction of the band. It required Les Gray to sing
in a style akin to that of Elvis Presley, and a sound and
direction were beginning to be established for the group.
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Their
next single, "Tiger Feet," topped the English
charts in early 1974, riding the number one spot for a month,
and they followed this with "The Cat Crept In,"
a top three British hit. "The Cat Crept In," in
particular, was written to exploit Les Gray's propensity
to imitate Elvis Presley, and the band was quite obviously
having the time of its life joining in the proceedings —
Chapman continued returning to the formula. The group treated
all of this as a lark. They were grateful for the hits,
and didn't feel compelled to worry over their artistic development
in the way of a lot of other acts — they'd started
out in music to have a good time, and they were having it.
Their musical competency and visual presentation —
particularly Rob Davis' willingness to ornament himself
with dangling jewelry — positioned them perfectly
for the glam-rock boom, and the Chinn-Chapman songs made
for catchy singles. |
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three hit singles, an album seemed a logical next step, and
one was knocked off in mid-1974, called Mud Rock, done as
a fake live performance which included a medley of the three
hits and a series of covers of classic rock & roll, everything
from the Contours' "Do You Love Me" and Chuck Berry's
"Bye Bye Johnny" to a Marcels'-style rendition of
Rodgers & Hart's "Blue Moon," with a nod to
big-band music in the form of "In the Mood." Mud
Rock sold well, and the band might've gone on perfectly well
this way, cutting hit singles and doing an LP once a year,
but for a problem that came up late in 1974, when Mud was
persuaded to sign a contract with the new Private Stock label.
They
were still under contract to Mickie Most, and the Chinn-Chapman
songwriting team kept providing the band with retro-style
songs, including "The Secrets That You Keep,"
another top three British single in early 1975. Their next
single, a cover of Buddy Holly's "Oh Boy!" that
made number one in England, was an outgrowth of the session
that yielded "Blue Moon" — the Holly song
was suggested as a follow-up at the time, cut for the second
album, and then culled as a single. By then, the band had
left RAK, and suddenly, they found themselves in the awkward
position of competing with themselves — before they
could get anything out on Private Stock, RAK had a succession
of hit singles (including a version of "One Night,"
a direct Elvis Presley cover). Their second album, rather
unimaginatively titled Mud Rock, Vol. II, yielded over a
million sales in singles drawn from its line-up of songs.
They
ultimately did get a succession of hit singles out on Private
Stock, and for another year Mud were a fixture on the UK
charts (and non-existent as a presence in America), before
their appeal faded. Glam-rock faded as punk and disco came
to dominate the airwaves and the charts. They continued
to record for Private Stock and RCA-U.K. until 1980, but
nothing they did ever sold in numbers resembling their past
glories. Mud's ride at the top was a short one, not even
three years from start to finish before they disappeared
from the charts, but they never intended to have a long
or lasting impact on music, just help people have a good
time.
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