T.Rex: Electric Warrior

1971 Fly Records HIFLY 6

Well, here we go with what would be my second album purchase. Marc Bolan’s second outing as T. Rex was released in September 1971 when I was 13, and as I knew my parents would never entertain spending money on ‘that rubbish’ as a Christmas present, I determined to get it myself, which I finally did a week before Christmas. The problem was that, for the first time, we went away for the holiday season and stayed at a hotel, which meant I had hardly had time to play the record before leaving. Consequently I pined over the entire break, longing to get back to my beloved new platter which I indeed played incessantly on my return.

The album’s front cover had a fabulous gold-and-black silhouette design of the curly one posing with his guitar in front of a stack of amps, designed by vaunted British art design group Hipgnosis, and the lyrics were reproduced on the reverse. It also came with line illustrations of Marc and Mickey Finn on the inner sleeve, supplied by artist George Underwood, the schoolfriend who had injured David Bowie’s eye in a fight in younger days. Underwood had already provided the design for Tyrannosaurus Rex’s 1968 album, the pretentiously titled My People Were Fair And Had Sky In Their Hair… But Now They’re Content To Wear Stars On Their Brows, and would later design the cover for Bolan’s lacklustre 1976 effort Futuristic Dragon. As bass player Steve Currie and drummer Bill Legend were only new recruits to the band, they did not receive the Underwood treatment, but they were included in the group shot on the free poster that was included. Footnote: way down the credits list was Tape Operator the late Martin Rushent, who later found fame as producer for The Human League, The Stranglers and the Buzzcocks, among others…

The group's eponymous previous release, while taking steps towards a more rock-oriented sound with electric tracks such as Jewel, Beltane Walk and One Inch Rock, was really just a refining of the folkie Tyrannosaurus Rex sound Bolan had been purveying over four years and as many albums. Electric Warrior, however, took a major plunge into what music critics liked to call ‘full-blown rock ’n’ roll attack’, adding a rhythm section and retaining the continued support of production, string arrangements and occasional instrumentation from Tony Visconti. After the chugging opener Mambo Sun, the following cut Cosmic Dancer, which would get a new lease of life 29 years later at the start of the film Billy Elliot, was a more dreamy affair, melding strings with electric guitar noodling from the elfin one. Next up was Jeepster, a crackin’ rock workout with echoes of an old Howlin’ Wolf tune, You'll Be Mine, penned by Willie Dixon, which would become the band’s 1971 Christmas hit (albeit held off the Number One slot by Benny Hill’s Ernie) – but thereby hangs a tale…

By the middle of 1971 Bolan's popularity knew no bounds, prompting hysteria at levels not seen since the halcyon days of the Fab Four, and he was now up for contract renewal, with legions of record companies falling at his feet with all kinds of offers. While some sources claim Bolan had already agreed a contract with his existing label Fly Records, he nevertheless signed a new deal with EMI who gave him his own T.Rex Records imprint, known as ‘T.Rex Wax Co’, and bearing his trademark red-on-blue Bolan motif. Egotistical? Just a bit, with the singles catalogue numbers starting with the prefix 'TREX', and later ‘MARC’, and the album numbers starting 'BLN'. Meanwhile, Fly boss David Platz, angered by what he saw as Bolan's about-face, released the Warrior track Jeepster as a Christmas single to compete with the forthcoming tidal wave of Yuletide chart product. Although Fly was legally entitled to do this, it would have been polite to consult Bolan. No matter... While he may not have approved of the Jeepster release, Bole was happy to lip-sync to it on all the TV music shows, now prancing energetically in glitzy silver show suits, in contrast to the less lively stance he had struck in the t-shirts, denim jacket and cords he had worn earlier in the year. He was, after all, on his way…

The album’s other single, Get It On, had hit the Number-One spot in mid-1971, so provided a solid opening to side two, and tracks such as Planet Queen, with Flo and Eddie to the fore, Monolith, on which Bolan experimented with wah-wah, and the foot-tapping The Motivator were classic Rexian rock cuts. The only disappointments were the two ballads, Girl, with it’s irritating, repeating ‘doo-doo’ chorus and untidy, double-tracked horn arrangement, and the dull Life’s A Gas, which Bolan performed as a sort of duet on Cilla Black’s TV show. Gas also became part of the Jeepster controversy when Fly selected it as the single's B-side: previously Bolan had always insisted on giving a little bit extra to the kids by putting two tracks on the flipside of his hits; here, not only had the label included only one track, they had chosen the most dismal song possible. To make up for it, in a sort of precursor to the picture disc, both tracks’ label details were shown on side one of the single, with its Roger Dean-designed Fly logo and caligraphy, while the flip label bore a much-used colour photo of Marc and Mickey. This didn’t really work, as almost identical photos from the same shoot had already appeared on the Warrior album B-side label and the covers of the band's abovementioned debut set and Best Of T. Rex compilation (actually a thrown-together collection of old Tyrannosaurus Rex material), as well as appearing as a pin-up in Jackie and other teen magazines.

Still, as well as the singles and the Queen, Monolith and Motivator cuts, there remained two knock-out numbers in the heavy r&b of Lean Woman Blues, which ended the first side, and the raucous album closer Rip Off, with its risible lyrics and concluding feedback sequence (I would always take the arm off prior to the cacophonous din at the end). Electric Warrior was a huge hit, topping the album charts and giving Lennon’s Imagine and the Rolling Stones’ Sticky Fingers platters an exhausting run for their money. It was also the last proper rock record Bolan made prior to descending into the frenetic, ego-fuelled, teeny bop merry-go-round that was Glam Rock, but it remains one of my two favourite T.Rex albums, and a real milestone of early Seventies rock ’n’ roll. The other fave, btw, is 1973's Tanx, which is bound to turn up on these pages sometime or other.