Ian Hunter – an image so familiar you’d recognise his silhouette - now lives in Connecticut and he’s just released expanded versions of two of his best-selling solo albums, You’re Never Alone With A Schizophrenic and Short Back N' Sides. He’s 85, born before any of the Beatles. We talk to him here about life growing up in the ‘40s and ‘50s when your father’s a copper and “music wasn’t allowed in the house”, and touch upon …

 

… the debt he owes Freddie ‘Fingers’ Lee.

 

… café jukeboxes full of Little Richard, Chuck Berry and Fats Domino.

 

… beating 165 acts at a talent contest at Butlins.

 

… the record that made the Beatles (which they didn’t write).

 

… “a two-piece corduroy suit, open-toed sandals, overweight …”: the Mott the Hoople audition.

 

… Bowie playing All The Young Dudes – “a monster” – cross-legged on the floor in Denmark Street after they’d turned down Suffragette City.

 

… why Hendrix was thrown out of Regent Sound studios.

 

… playing the Reeperbahn in 1963.

 

… recording ‘Schizophrenic’ with three members of the E Street Band.

 

… “Do you want a cuddle?” The Mick Ronson recording method.

 

… the good thing about Covid.

 

… watching punk bands with Mick Jones.

 

… plus a ‘dyed-black’ Ford Anglia and the Greatest Record Ever Made.

 

Order Ian’s re-released albums here:

Buy link: https://ianhunter.lnk.to/sbns

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