Mott The Hoople

Esoteric Recordings are pleased to announce the release of a new 2CD anthology celebrating the British rock band Widowmaker. Formed in 1975 by former Mott the Hoople and Spooky Tooth guitarist Luther Grosvenor, also known as Ariel Bender. The original line-up of the band featured vocalist Steve Ellis (ex-Love Affair & Ellis), guitarist Huw Lloyd-Langton (ex-Hawkwind), Australian bassist Bob Daisley (ex-Chicken Shack) and drummer Paul Nicholls who had previously been a member of Lindisfarne. A few months after they had begun rehearsing at Emerson, Lake & Palmer's Manticore Studios in London, Widowmaker signed to Don Arden's Jet Records label.

This 30-track collection charts the life of the genre. Here you will find Sweet, T Rex, David Bowie, Suzi Quatro, Mud, Alice Cooper …

Hackensack formed first in 1969 and its origins and ancestry are obscure, but by ’71 founder Nicky Moore (who later replaced Bruce Dickinson who had moved on to Iron Maiden as frontman in Samson) felt he had put the right band together and started touring heavily. By 1972 they were playing well over 250 concerts a year non-stop across Britain and Europe. Hackensack existed from 1968 to 1974 and disbanded after the release of the album. They have built a good reputation for themselves as a hardworking and blues hard rock quartet. Their first album may well decorate any collection today. This album was first recorded in 1973 live at Clifton College, Nottingham and re-recorded for the 2017 Audio Archives re-release, for the band's reunion.

The AIDS charity concert staged by the surviving members of Queen on April 20, 1992, at Wembley Stadium was an appropriate send-off for the band's late lead singer, Freddie Mercury, who had succumbed to the disease five months earlier. The flamboyant Mercury was always in his element before gigantic crowds like the one that filled Wembley one last time, and his stand-ins for the occasion – Gary Cherone (then of Extreme), Roger Daltrey, Joe Elliott (Def Leppard), James Hetfield (Metallica), Elton John, Annie Lennox, George Michael, Liza Minnelli, Robert Plant, Axl Rose (Guns N' Roses), Seal, Lisa Stansfield, Paul Young, and Zucchero – were artists who both knew how to work such audiences and also had at least some of his flair for performing…