Steve Priest (February 23, 1948 – June 4, 2020)
The Sweet were a big part of my childhood. But to admit liking them when I was at school was to invite ridicule from the overwhelming majority – the ‘serious’ music fans who despised anyone who had a hit single. Or even released a single.
I always suspected a large part of their objection was Steve Priest’s hilariously camp interjections to their songs (“We just haven’t got a clue WHAT to do!”) which, when combined with their Glam costumes, lent the suspicion they might be that most disdained of subcultures in the Seventies – “poofs.”
I can honestly say I never gave that a moment’s thought – it was all just fancy dress to me, the musical equivalent of panto – but if I had, it wouldn’t have bothered me in the slightest. And I see now that he was a happily married man, confirming the impression that he was simply taking the piss.
The Sweet always looked like a bunch of builders who were having a laugh, and would change into jeans as soon as they came offstage and head down to the pub for some serious drinking (which, in Brian Connolly’s case, turned out to be all too tragically true).
Anyway, rather than post one of those obvious hits, of which Teenage Rampage was always my favourite (even if everyone else prefers Block Buster and Ballroom Blitz), here’s the song that Andy Scott – now the last surviving member – described, quite rightly, as the best song Chinn and Chapman ever wrote, when I saw his version of the band (minus Priest, sadly) only last December.
It was their 10th Top 20 hit and by the time they recorded this fantastic live version for a German TV show, they had shed the trappings of Glam in favour of their first love, Metal, Scott bearing an uncanny resemblance to David St Hubbins from Spinal Tap.
The quartet adopt the most macho of poses with the exception of Priest, who concludes the song with a fantastically limp-wristed punch of the air – positively Henmanesque, you might say – when he gets his traditional moment in the vocal spotlight.
It’s also just a fantastic song, with a strangely poignant lyric and an amazing guitar solo by Scott in the middle – little wonder that the serious rock fans at school secretly liked The Sweet’s self-penned B-sides – and a second half that’s basically punk before punk was invented. But the best bit, as ever, is the bass player’s posturing and pouting contribution.
RIP Steve Priest