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Cherry Red [Release date 18.08.23]
This Mr. Big (the UK band) boxset is as close to a full blown “life and career” retrospective of the original iteration of the band as we’re likely to get.
It comprises the 3 most significant albums of the band’s fairly brief seventies moment in the sun. It also includes extensive liner notes from English musician Phil Kendricks, in conversation with Dicken (aka Jeff Pain), the man who formed and led the band through the highs and lows of the rock’n’roll circus 50 years ago.
Plus 10 bonus track which include key songs remixed for USA album versions.
After a stuttering start, things changed for the band when Bob Hirschman (Mott The Hoople Manager) took over management of the band in 1975. Key TV appearances, and UK support tours with Queen and Sweet followed. As did US tours with Tom Petty, Journey and Kansas. The debut album, Sweet Silence, was then released under Hirschman’s tutelage.
Despite some quality material – the AC/DC/ Steve Gibbons band stylings of the title track, and the Zulu chant/novelty Pop vibe of ‘Zambia’ are memorable, but neither helped engineer that much sought after market breakthrough.
The US remixes are also here, presented as bonus tracks.
Mr Big, the album, released in 1976, was a significant step in songwriting, performance and ambition. The band had developed a definitive Britpop style, but eyes were on the US market. Several tracks were remixed with this in mind.
The lead single, ‘Romeo’ charted in the USA and the Antipodes, and boosted by an initial BBC airplay ban, also reached No.4 in The UK Top Ten bestsellers.
The superb follow up, ’Feel Like Calling Home’ was arguably just as attractive a proposition, quirkier perhaps, but failed to match ‘Romeo’ sales.
Several non album tracks, inc the pre-Sweet Silence singles are included as bonus tracks.
Seppuku, produced by Ian Hunter, was recorded in 1978 but not released until 2001.
By release date, Mr Big’s bird had well and truly flown, the ship had sailed, a generation had passed, the chance had gone etc etc.
Shame, by this, their third album they’d further shaped their sound into something a little more sophisticated. The ballad, ‘Senora’ is a step up from ‘Romeo’, ‘Here It Comes Again’s tidal wave of a chorus leaves the competition stranded on the beach. And ‘Tonight’s attractive punkish charm again demonstrates Dikken’s versatility as a writer and performer.
And so it was all over bar the shouting, and the band split up.
They reformed in the nineties, releasing Rainbow Bridge album in 1996, but that’s another story. ***
Review by Brian McGowan
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