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This Review and 204 More Like It Are Available In My
Amazon e-Book
CAPT. FANTASTIC - 1975
Your All-Genres Guide To
Exceptional CD Reissues & Remasters
All Reviews From The Discs Themselves
(No Cut And Paste Crap)
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"...Once Bitten Twice Shy..."
In January 2021 - almost a whole year into Pandemic lockdown and nationwide minimalist misery - something odd happening on the budget CD reissue front. And it involved Ian Hunter and Mott The Hoople.
Crimson - which is a label subsidiary of England's Demon Music - issued "Gold" as a 3CD dirt cheap 50-Track round up of English rockers Mott The Hoople and Ian Hunter's solo output between 1972 and 1983. Retailing at under six quid and covering all points between Mott's 1972 "All The Young Dudes" LP (featuring David Bowie and Mick Ronson) and Hunter's last studio album for Columbia/CBS Records in 1983 "All The Good Ones Are Taken" - it was preposterously great value for money (released 8 January 2021).
Using Demon's long-standing licensing arrangements with Sony Music – it also boasted their Remasters into the bargain. In fact as I recall, fans were amazed to see "Gold" do such business that at one time it was No. 1 on Amazon UK's reissue CD charts and has apparently made the real UK LP charts at No. 33 as a compilation – his first showing in decades. Hardly bloody surprising mind you, when you look down through the huge 50 tracks.
So why do I mention this with regard to the 2005 "30th Anniversary Edition" CD reissue of his 1975 UK debut LP "Ian Hunter" with its paltry 14 songs? Because such is its popularity amongst fans, "Gold" boasts seven of its eight original tracks - only the LP version of "Boy" being missing. So why would you buy the 30th issue at all if you can nab seven of its eight and so much more? Fabulous remastered sound for one, six genuinely great Extras for another and far better colour annotation and liner notes - none of which is on the budget "Gold" set in its basic foldout card sleeve. And the 30th Anniversary Edition is also a smidge above six quid to buy – so reasonable too. Here are the Once Bitten Twice Shy details...
UK released 2 May 2005 - "Ian Hunter: 30th Anniversary Edition" by IAN HUNTER on Columbia 519 817 9 (Barcode 5099751981794) is an Expanded Edition CD Reissue and Remaster with Six Bonus Tracks that plays out as follows (58:42 minutes):
1. Once Bitten Twice Shy (4:44 minutes) [Side 1]
2. Who Do You Love (3:51 minutes)
3. Lounge Lizard (4:31 minutes)
4. Boy (8:55 minutes)
5. 3,000 Miles From Here (2:48 minutes) [Side 2]
6. The Truth, The Whole truth, Nuthin' But The Truth (6:14 minutes)
7. It Ain't Easy When You Fall/Shades Off (5:46 minutes)
8. I Get So Excited (3:50 minutes)
Tracks 1 to 8 are his debut solo album "Ian Hunter" - released 28 March 1975 in the UK on CBS Records S 80710 and April 1975 in the USA on Columbia PC 33480. Produced by IAN HUNTER and MICK RONSON - it peaked at No. 21 in the UK and No. 50 in the USA on the LP charts.
BONUS TRACKS:
9. Colwater High (Session Outtake, 3:12 Minutes)
10. One Fine Day (Session Outtake, 2:22 Minutes)
11. Once Bitten Twice Shy (Single Version, 3:52 Minute Edit) – 4 April 1975 UK 45-single on CBS Records S CBS 3194, A-side
12. Who Do You Love (Single Version, 3:18 Minute Edit) - 25 July 1975 UK 45-single on CBS Records S CBS 3486, A-side
13. Shades Off (Poem) (1:37 Minutes)
14. Boy (Single Version, 3:42 Minute Edit) - B-side of Track 12 - PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED on CD
The full-colour 16-page booklet is a jam-packed affair – concert tickets, foreign picture sleeves, tour badges, press reviews – and all of it washed done with hugely informative and well-written liner notes from CAMPBELL DEVINE (done in February 2005) that include comments from Hunter. Not surprisingly – the other huge factor in it all is the ace axeman MICK RONSON who is featured a lot. In fact when you play through the first three cuts on Side 1, Ronson is so on top form and so Seventies Rock 'n' Roll - it hurts - and you can 'so' hear why he was a choice to replace Mick Taylor in The Rolling Stones. Audio is care of first generation tapes Remastered by MASTERPIECE and again taking a track like "Lounge Lizard" – the guitars are kicking your doors down. This CD sounds fantastic.
You get so used to the April 1975 45-single edit of "Once Bitten Twice Shy" at 3:52 minutes that the album's extra minute comes as almost an elongated shock. And as good as it is, I'd suggest that the single edit is the right one – the tight one. Either way, "Once Bitten Twice Shy" and its witty lyrics about naughty men on the road and that fantastic Bowie-esque dirty riffage make it such a winner. Hunter has been playing it ever since – brill – what a Ronson guitar solo too towards the end.
"Who Do You Love" is a great second helping and it stills feel shocking that it didn't do as well as its predecessor 45-single when issued 25 July 1975 on CBS Records S CBS 3486 in Blighty with an edit of the near nine-minute "Boy" on its flipside. Speaking of which, the seven-inch single edit of "Boy" (here as a Bonus Track) has our hero swearing one minute with nothing to say the next – and again even though it loses nearly five-minutes plus from the LP cut – it works beautifully. Typical of Ian Hunter to pen a cool stand-and-deliver ballad about schizophrenia.
Side 2 opens with the short but wide-open-spaces-beautiful "3,000 Miles From Here" – a bittersweet tale of a one-night stand lady who took his attention just a little too seriously – him ashamed and pining – sans phone number or even a name. Back to genius with a huge fan fave – the kick-ass Rock-rolling slow-march of "The Truth, The Whole Truth, Nuthin' But The Truth" – once again Ronson boot-boy stomping your speakers into submission with highly produced rawk guitar. Love that funky clavinet backdrop too. Big Ballad time comes in the piano-thump of "It Ain't Easy When You Fall/Shades Off" – its chorus feeling like some great Bowie mid-Seventies tune you’d forgotten and just stumbled on again. "Ian Hunter" ends on the speeding riffage of "I Get So Excited" – Ian hearing a thousand drums miles away – his childlike love of Rock and Roll Music still leaving him so inspired and raring to go.
Both the session outtakes "Colwater High" and "One Fine Day" were uncovered in 2000 for the "Anthology" set where Hunter re-did new vocals. They sound huge and are more glam than damn – with "One Fine Day" rocking it like a monster – so great. The "Shades Off” track is a spoken poem – green fields travelling by – Hunter sounding like Bowie trying to work out life as he watches it pass by – its final moments featuring faded-in music from the album.
The 30th Anniversary Edition of 1975's "Ian Hunter" is Dedicated to Mick Ronson (1943 to 1993) – and damn right. But what a combo they made - Hunter's songwriting and voice versus Ronson's down and dirty guitar. It sounds amazing, is well presented and the extras are actually worthy of the moniker 'Bonus Tracks'. Get your hands across that state line one more time people and un-peel this wee Seventies gem in all its snotty Rock 'n' Roll glory...
