Are You Ready Steve?

Not all heroes wear capes. But mine do. (And I still have several scrapbooks* to prove it). Although we never met**, Steve Priest and I did, in the late 90s, exchange many emails: in 1997 we were both on the brand new AOL and, for reasons that escape me now, we would regularly have real time chitchats - me in the UK, Steve in California - where he'd been living since the 80s.

The Caped Crusader (second from the right)

Between 1972 and 1974 Steve and his three amigos*** were rarely off our TV screens; their tub-thumping glam anthems are the very touchstone of this blog (see the bar on the LHS of this blog if you don't believe me) and as such made the Sweet a household name; Thursday nights in the early 70s - when Top of the Pops was in its pomp - saw the majority of British teenagers glued to their sofas for the best part of 40 minutes whilst at the same time wishing their parents would just bugger off and let them soak up these glam(orous) sights and sounds alone.

Steve Priest  (1948-2020)

And that's how I want to remember Steve who sadly passed away yesterday: the clutch of singles (and blistering B sides)& string of albums his band made in just a handful of years are the very building blocks the rest of my record collection was built on.

* I found half a dozen scrapbooks at my dad's just before lockdown - all full to the gunnels of Sweet photos and cuttings. After lockdown I'll try and post some extracts on here.
** Unlike Brian Connolly. Here is the link to my infamous Brian Connolly story.

*** Brian Connolly (1945-1997)

Mick Tucker (1947-2002)

Andy Scott (1949-)

RCA

Depending on your age, and your musical compass, the RCA Victor label will either mean Elvis, Perry Como and Clodagh Rogers, or, most likely, The Sweet, Bowie and Lou Reed.
  Regular readers know that my love affair with their classic green and white paper sleeve goes back to a time when men wore hats, women wore hairnets and children played in the street dodging Ford Cortinas and white dog poo.


And then through the seventies RCA did the whole rebrand thing and before you could say Eight Track Cartridge we were surrounded by rainbows and flowers. But, alas, labels and sleeves have gone the same way as 4 Star petrol and phone boxes. However, these miniature canvasses, painted by my friend Tony and now hanging in my music room, will serve as a memory to a time when the pound in your pocket could buy you two singles (sometimes three) and Steve Priest could still get into a pair of 30 inch waist trousers.