Mick Ralphs, Guitarist in Bad Company and Mott the Hoople, Dead at 81

Mick Ralphs, whose guitar and songwriting powered two classic British bands, Bad Company and Mott the Hoople, has died. A spokesperson for Ralphs’ family confirmed the news to Rolling Stone. Ralphs was 81.

In 2016, Ralphs suffered a stroke after a series of Bad Company shows in the U.K. and was hospitalized; according to lead singer Paul Rodgers, who co-founded Bad Company with Ralphs in 1973, Ralphs had been in a nursing home in recent years. Bad Company had just been voted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and are scheduled to be inducted at the ceremony in November.

“Our Mick has passed, my heart just hit the ground,” Rodgers said in a statement. “He has left us with exceptional songs and memories. He was my friend, my songwriting partner, an amazing and versatile guitarist who had the greatest sense of humour. Our last conversation a few days ago we shared a laugh but it won’t be our last. There are many memories of Mick that will create laughter. Condolences to everyone who loved him especially his one true love, [Ralphs’ wife] Susie. I will see you in heaven.”  

In addition to providing the group with its recognizable heavy riffing and power chords, Ralphs also wrote band classics like “Can’t Get Enough,” “Ready for Love,” and ”Good Lovin’ Gone Bad” and co-wrote “Bad Company” and “Feel Like Makin’ Love.” Ralphs was also a founding member of Mott the Hoople and played on the band’s first six albums, including the David Bowie-produced All the Young Dudes.

“I think he’s very versatile, and his sound is very versatile, and he locks into a song perfectly,” Rodgers said in an interview last year. “If it’s ‘Can’t Get Enough’ or ‘Bad Company,’ or ‘Feel Like Makin’ Love’ or ‘Shooting Star,’ you can immediately recognize his playing and go, ‘That’s Mick Ralphs.’”

Born March 31, 1944, Ralphs played in several bands as a teenager before becoming a member of Silence, a band based in Hereford, near Wales. When singer Ian Hunter joined the band in 1969, the group changed its name to Mott the Hoople (after a novel by Willard Manus). In that band, Ralphs wrote one of its earliest standards, “Rock and Roll Queen,” and joined the band in dressing in glam outfits. (“Ready for Love” was also first cut by Mott.)

Tension between Hunter and Ralphs led to the guitarist leaving the band in 1973. “I used to always feel a part of Mott, but things have changed a lot since the old days,” Ralphs told Rolling Stone that year. “Ian has sort of taken the initiative now, which is great for the band as a whole but not very good for me as an individual. I should be singing and writing more than I am, but rather than fight with Ian all down the line, I thought it best that I just leave.”

Coincidentally, Ralphs had already met Rodgers, who was frustrated with his own band Free, despite scoring a massive hit with “All Right Now.” “I got to talking with Paul and he felt a bit like me,” Ralphs told Rolling Stone in 1974. “We were both in situations where we weren’t entirely at liberty to do what we wanted to do.” Ralphs stayed with Mott the Hoople throughout the making of Mott, and a recording of an in-studio fight between Hunter and Ralphs was included in “Violence,” the very song they were arguing over.

With drummer Simon Kirke and bassist Boz Burrell, Bad Company launched in 1974. Compared to other so-called supergroups of the time, they were more cohesive both in terms of music and image. But thanks to heavy-duty management (Led Zeppelin’s Peter Grant) and backing (they were one of the first bands signed to Zeppelin’s new Swan Song label). Powered by “Can’t Get Enough,” their self-titled 1974 hit no. 1 on the Billboard album chart.

Of “Can’t Get Enough,” Rodgers recalled, in the liner notes of a Bad Company anthology, “I remember him playing it for me. I was absolutely certain that it was a hit. It was one of the reasons why I thought we had a future together.”

Compared to Mott the Hoople, Bad Company’s earthier music and less flashy songs were preferable. “All that glitter thing!” Ralphs said in 1974. “Since David Bowie, it has become passé.” Ralphs is also said to have provided the band with its name: After Rodgers told him he’d written a song called “Bad Company,” Ralphs insisted that should also serve as its moniker. But as the low-key Ralphs said in 1978, “It’s not literal; we don’t come into town and beat anybody up.”  

After the original Bad Company broke up in the early Eighties, Ralphs made a solo album but soon reformed Bad Company with Kirke and the first of two new lead singers replacing Rodgers. The group made four albums starting in the Eighties, but in 1990, Ralphs sat out one of their tours, saying he had never been fond of the road and had to take care of his ailing father.

Adhering to his low-key nature, Ralphs spent the following decades returning to the studio and on the road with Bad Company and even regrouped with Hunter for shows in the U.K. But after a series of Bad Company concerts in November 2016, Ralph’s family announced he had suffered a stroke, from which he never fully recovered.

Earlier this year, Ralphs had sent an email to Billboard expressing his happiness with the band finally being inducted into the Hall of Fame: “I am elated and think that Bad Company’s induction into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame is fantastic!” Ralphs is survived by his wife, Susie Chavasse, two children, and three step-children.

From Rolling Stone US.