Members: MICK STEWART
Lead Guitar - 1966-1967
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Members: MICK STEWART |
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Lead Guitar - 1966-1967 |
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Mick Stewart was recruited into the New Pirates in April 1966, when Nick Simper was tipped off by Kidd's current organist Ray Soaper, who was gigging with Kidd at the time. Kidd didn't have a regular band after parting company with the Spence/Farley/Cooper/Moreshead Pirates earlier in the year. With the arrival of Roger Truth (real name Roger Pinner) the New Pirates were in place. Like previous Pirates, this line-up had their own set where Stewart would sing around half-a-dozen numbers before Kidd made his entrance onstage and the real business began. Kidd was killed on the night of 7th October, while returning from a gig that was cancelled because the band arrived a little bit late and the Pirates as an entity were put on temporary hold. Stewart with Roger Truth teamed up with Johnny Spence and Vic Cooper to back Jerry Lee Lewis. This was on a special arrangement with the British Musicians Union which allowed Jerry Lee Lewis to bring his own band over as long as a group of UK musicians were available to take over when required. In the event this unique and unofficial "Pirate" line-up were paid for the length of Lewis' UK tour but never got to perform together.
Nick Simper, whose arm was badly broken in the crash that claimed Kidd's life had recovered after a couple of months and the New Pirates re-grouped to go out on the road in their own right, after losing drummer Truth to the Freddie Mac Band and replacing him with John Kerrison who stayed until the group finally called it a day in May 1967 after finding bookings ever harder to come by. In 1969 he replaced Frank Torpey in a pre-fame Sweet who were signed to Parlophone and released three singles to which he supplied the b-sides of two. "Lollipop Man" was released in September of 1969, the follow up was a Greenaway-Cook number, "All You'll Ever Get From Me" in January 1970, and lastly came a cover of the Archie's song, "Get On The Line" which finally emerged in June 1970. Unfortunately all of which failed to chart and Stewart then quit, to be replaced by Andy Scott (late of the Scaffold, Mayfield's Mule, and the Elastic Band). With Scott, the Sweet achieved pop Glam Superstardom from 1970 onwards. The six Parlophone sides were packaged together on one side of an EMI "Music for Pleasure" album called "Gimme Dat Ding" (!) which featured songs by the Pipkins on the reverse - that group was a diversion for songwriter Roger Greenaway, with Tony Burrows, ex of the Ivy League and the Flowerpot Men. By the late 1970's Mick Stewart had given up being a guitar player and had relocated to the US where he'd moved into record production. Today he runs a record production company and a music publishing business in his home town of Malibu in California and also lives part-time in Nashville where he occasionally partakes in recordings and writes songs. |
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