Four solo albums from the guitarist and songwriter Mick Ralphs who was a founder member of two of the most important rock bands of the 1970s; Mott The Hoople and Bad Company.

Mick Ralphs wrote many key songs across seven Mott The Hoople albums, followed by six records with Bad Company; these included ‘Rock and Roll Queen’, ‘Ready For Love’, ‘Can’t Get Enough’, ‘Good Lovin’ Gone Bad’ and ‘Movin’ On’.

Bad Company took a break following 1982’s ‘Rough Diamonds’, and after a stint playing alongside David Gilmour on his About Face tour, Mick embarked on a solo career in 1984 with ‘Take This!’ (CD1) which featured bassist Micky Feat and fellow Bad Company founder, drummer Simon Kirke, with a live band that consisted of guitarist Dave “Bucket” Colwell (later to join Ralphs in a reformed Bad Company), Uriah Heep drummer Chris Slade and Ozzy Osbourne keyboard player Lindsay Bridgewater. The version here features ten bonus tracks.

Bad Company reformed with various line-ups, and after a reunion tour with the original quartet in 1999, Ralphs released his second solo album, the all instrumental ‘It’s AllGood’ (CD2) in 2001. This is clearly an album by a man enjoying himself once more, recording an album’s worth of music he loves and playing all of the instruments himself on the studio tracks. The songs were new Mick Ralphs solo recordings, except ‘Hideaway’, which was a previously unreleased Bad Company live recording from their 1999 USA tour, featuring Simon Kirke on drums and Boz Burrell on bass.

Two years later his ‘That’s Life – Can’t Get Enough’ (CD3) album was released and included ‘Budgie’, an unreleased Bad Company track from 1977, plus a 1970 demo of ‘Can’t Get Enough’, a song that went on to become Bad Company’s biggest hit.

In 2013, The Mick Ralphs Blues Band released ‘Should Know Better – Live At The Musician’ (CD4), recorded in Leicester. Across seven tracks, Mick is joined by Stuart Maxwell on vocals and harmonica, Jim Maving on guitar, Dicky Baldwin on bass and Adam Perry on drums, and the set includes a cover of Jimmy Reed’s ‘Shame Shame Shame’ and Howlin’ Wolf’s ‘Evil’.