The sweet

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The sweet
Andy Scott's The Sweet at the Radio Regenbogen Award 2017 in the Europapark in Rust
Andy Scott's The Sweet at the Radio Regenbogen Award 2017 in the Europapark in Rust
General information
Genre (s) Glam rock
founding 1968 as Sweet Shop , 1985
resolution 1981
Website www.thesweet.com
Founding members
Brian Connolly (until 1979, † 1997)
Andy Scott (since 1970)
Steve Priest (until 1981, † 2020)
Mick Tucker (until 1991, † 2002)
Current occupation
guitar
Andy Scott (since 1970)
singing
Paul Manzi (since 2019)
Drums
Bruce Bisland (since 1991)
bass
Lee Small (since 2019)
former members
guitar
Frank Torpey (until 1969)
guitar
Mick Stewart (1969)
Bass, vocals since 1989
Malcolm McNulty (1985-1994)
Bass, since 1998 vocals & bass
Jeff Brown (1989-2003)
Vocals, bass, later guitar, keyboards & vocals
Tony O'Hora (2003-2006 and 2011-2019)
Vocals, bass
Peter Lincoln (2006-2019)
singing
Chad Brown (1994-1998)
singing
Paul Mario Day (1985–1988)
Keyboard, guitar
Steve Mann (1990-1996)
Keyboard
Phil Lanzon (1985-1988)
Keyboard, guitar
Steve Grant (1996-2011)

The Sweet is a British rock band whose founding line-up Brian Connolly , Andy Scott , Steve Priest and Mick Tucker was one of the most successful glam rock groups of the 1970s with hits like The Ballroom Blitz , Teenage Rampage , Blockbuster and Fox on the Run . Today the last survivor Andy Scott leads a group called The Sweet, which plays on all continents except America with concerts.

history

The band came from Middlesex , England , originally called "Sweet Shop" and performed in clubs and discos until 1970. After the first unsuccessful recordings such as Lollipop Man (September 1969), All You'll Ever Get from Me (January 1970) and the Archies cover Get on the Line (June 1970) and a canceled record deal, the producer and former drummer Phil Wainman brought the Musicians in the studio.

With a series of hits penned by Mike Chapman and Nicky Chinn , the group made it into the German charts. The second single from this collaboration, Co-Co , landed at number one in the German charts and number two in Great Britain. After further singles such as Poppa Joe , Little Willy and Wig Wam Bam , they were given a harder, contemporary image as a glam rock band from 1973 along with the corresponding hit material. Well, right up to date with the latest fashion trends, followed with Block Buster! , which became the UK's biggest hit in 1973, Hell Raiser , The Ballroom Blitz and Teenage Rampage a series of rock anthems that spiced up with sirens and thunderbolts all topped the charts.

In the period that followed, the band's success waned a bit, and the band members wanted to get more involved with their own songs. They were already featured with their own pieces on the LPs and B-sides of most of the singles. The first self-written single was called Fox on the Run , and the song was initially only heard as a rock song on the LP Desolation Boulevard . The single and a revised LP with the new version came on the market a short time later. The album Desolation Boulevard was the first record in which the The in the name of the group no longer appeared. From then on she only called herself Sweet .

The band released other LPs such as Give Us a Wink with songs like Cockroach , The Lies in your eyes , Healer and Action, and Off the Record with songs like The Fever of Love , Lost Angels and Windy City . Then she changed the record company. The following LP Level Headed was released by Polydor and in Japan and the USA by Capitol . She wrote the single Love is like Oxygen , which reached the top ten in Germany, Great Britain and the USA in 1978. In total, The Sweet had 16 hits in the top ten in Germany, eight of which took first place. In the official UK singles chart, only Block Buster! number one, but five other singles came in second.

Eventually the classic line-up broke up - not least because of the poor health of singer Brian Connolly due to alcohol . He left the band in 1979. The remaining members released the LP Cut Above the Rest . The same line-up also released Water's Edge , simply titled Six in the USA , and finally the LP Identity Crisis in Germany and South America . According to Steve Priest, the last concert of this line-up took place on March 20, 1981 at Glasgow University.

Follow-up time

The Sweet, 2009

Brian Connolly released three unsuccessful singles. An LP released in the 1980s also had only moderate sales. He also founded the band "New Sweet" and was with her often at the increasingly popular oldie shows until his death in 1997, where he played Sweet pieces from the early phase of the band such as Little Willy or Wig-Wam Bam , while The Sweet continued to perform on the big stages with Mick Tucker and Andy Scott . In 1991 Mick Tucker left the band for health reasons; he died in 2002. Andy Scott continued to perform with "Andy Scott's Sweet". Since then he has also been working as a producer.

Andy Scott's version of the band released various singles, CD compilations and DVDs as well as the albums Live At The Marquee (1989), A (1992), Glitz, Blitz & Hitz! Sweetlife (2002) and New York Connection (2012). Steve Priest has also had his own Sweet formation since 2008, with which he published a live album in addition to various sampler contributions.

In 2016, The Ballroom Blitz was used for the third trailer of the film Suicide Squad from the DC Extended Universe . In the same year, the song Fox on the Run was used for the second trailer of the Marvel film Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 .

Original cast

  • Brian Connolly, vocals: (born October 5, 1945 in Glasgow , Scotland , † February 9, 1997). He died in a London hospital of complications from kidney failure, having previously had several heart attacks.
  • Andy Scott, guitar: (born June 30, 1949 in Wrexham, Wales). Before Scott joined in 1970, guitarist Mick Stewart recorded three unsuccessful singles in 1969 and 1970. The first guitarist was founding member Frank Torpey, who left the band after the debut single Slow Motion (1968).
  • Steve Priest, Bass: (* February 23, 1948 in Hayes ; † June 4, 2020). After Brian Connolly left the group, Priest took over the vocal part with Scott in 1979. He later went to the USA and withdrew from the music world for a long time.
  • Mick Tucker, drums (born July 17, 1947 in London 14, † February 2002) left the group in 1991. He died in Welwyn Garden City , Hertfordshire to leukemia .

Discography

Studio albums

year Title
music label
Top ranking, total weeks / months, awardChart placementsChart placementsTemplate: chart table / maintenance / without sourcesTemplate: chart table / maintenance / monthly data
(Year, title, music label , rankings, weeks / months, awards, notes)
Remarks
DE DE AT AT CH CH UK UK US US
1971 Funny Funny How Sweet Co-Co Can Be
RCA Records
- - - - -
First published: November 26, 1971
1974 Sweet Fanny Adams
BMG Records
DE2 (2½ months)
DE
AT6 (3 months)
AT
- UK27
gold
gold

(2 weeks)UK
-
First published: April 1974
Sales: + 100,000
Desolation Boulevard
Capitol Records / RCA Records
DE9 (2 months)
DE
- - UK-
silver
silver
UK
US25th
gold
gold

(44 weeks)US
First published: November 1, 1974
Sales: +610,000
1976 Give Us a Wink
RCA Records
DE9 (1 month)
DE
- - - US27 (13 weeks)
US
First published: February 16, 1976
1977 Off the Record
RCA Records
DE11 (2 months)
DE
AT5 (1 month)
AT
- - US151 (4 weeks)
US
First published: April 1977
1978 Level Headed
Polydor
DE15 (1½ months)
DE
AT17 (1 month)
AT
- - US52 (28 weeks)
US
First published: January 1978
1979 Cut above the rest of
Polydor
DE49 (2 weeks)
DE
- - - US151 (5 weeks)
US
First published: March 1979
1980 Water's Edge (also known as: Sweet VI )
Polydor
- - - - -
First published: April 1980
1982 Identity Crisis
Polydor
- - - - -
First published: November 1982
1992 A
SPV Records
- - - - -
First publication: 1992
2002 SweetLife
Delicious Records
- - - - -
First published: April 29, 2002
2012 New York Connection
self-distribution
- - - - -
First published: April 27, 2012

gray hatching : no chart data available for this year

literature

  • Bubi Heilemann, Sabine Thomas: The Sweet: live on tour - at home - studio - backstage - private. Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-89602-649-6 . (German)

Web links

Commons : The Sweet  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. [1]
  2. http://www.thesweet.com/
  3. Biography / Homepage Steve Priest`s Sweet
  4. Homepage The Sweet by Andy Scott
  5. Trailer 3 - Suicide Squad
  6. Trailer 2 - Guardians of the Galaxy 2
  7. netzeitung.de ( memento of July 21, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) accessed on November 21, 2011.