Mud Rock

Personnel: Rob Davis (vocals, guitar); Dave Mount (vocals, drums); Les Gray , Ray Stiles (vocals).
Liner Note Author: Phil Hendriks.
Recording information: Audio International Studios, London, UK.
Mud's debut album is one of those records that truly sums up a time and a place -- in this instance, England in 1974, as glam rock flirted increasingly gregariously with a similarly ongoing rock & roll revival. It was a period, after all, in which Bill Haley returned to the Top 20, Showaddywaddy was threatening to dominate it, and Mud itself had been launching some remarkably convincing Elvis impersonations into the upper echelons of the chart. Mud's producers and songwriters, Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman, certainly encouraged their charges' retro pretensions, conceiving both Mud Rock and its successor, Mud Rock, Vol. 2, as all-out party albums, with the band the greatest jukebox in the land. Their own hits are slashed through by vintage covers, while the studio itself was transformed into a dance floor, with Chapman recording the sound of the revelers as a constant background to the music itself. It was, at the time, a frightfully effective device, one that transformed what otherwise might have been a competent selection of hits and covers into one of the wildest nights the town had ever seen. Musically, the critics were unanimous, Mud Rock offered little you'd never heard before, and nothing you weren't expecting. But the mood, the enthusiasm, and the excitement of the record are irresistible regardless. ~ Dave Thompson