We didn’t write it that way, it was just how he saw the song.Gray commented, I was doing an Elvis on that but it was really a send-up of all those smoochy songs It works because it can also be taken seriously. Chinn, its writer, says, It was Mud parodying Elvis Presley, and some people did think it was Elvis at first Les did a great Elvis on that. We were mates, but the competition was fierce.After the Christmas extravaganza in 1973, with hyperactive hits from Slade and Wizzard, Mud had their Christmas No 1 in 1974 with a ballad, “Lonely This Christmas”. Gray said, I didn’t mind miming on Top of the Pops as we could work out dance routines and some sort of a gimmick, and there was Gary Glitter, Alvin Stardust, Sweet, Slade, Suzi Quatro and us all trying to outdo each other. Amateur songwriters often write too many lyrics, which is a big mistake, because the public don’t remember many words.This was followed with “The Cat Crept In” (which went to No 2) and “Rocket” (No 6), and the group also had a big-selling album with Mudrock.

Sometimes you repeat things because there is nowhere else to go and that is what happened there. Chinn comments, Of course “Tiger Feet” is repetitive but it sounds so good and is so memorable that it made the song. They had tango beats and they would not have been a big band if we had continued like that. When Sweet turned down “Dyna-Mite”, we gave it to Mud and that went to No 4 and established the style.Then in 1974 came their massive hit with “Tiger Feet”. Chinn says, We didn’t get it right at first with “Crazy” and “Hypnosis”, although they were hits.

He asked the songwriters and producers Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman to see them. It was fortuitous for them that Glam Rock came along when it did. They were Glam Rock without actually being a Glam Rock band, and their records are so indicative of the era that anybody should be able to date them straight away.In 1972, the owner of RAK Records, Mickie Most, saw Mud at the Revolution Club in London, backing and also supporting Linda Kendrick He wanted to sign them, but they had a contract elsewhere Once they were free, they called Most. We never said, “We’re rock and roll, we don’t do that.” It’s entertainment and besides, I loved Basil Brush!”I think that remark sums up Mud,” says Mike Brocken, Senior Lecturer in Creative and Performing Arts at Hope University in Liverpool: Their early records sound like Edison Lighthouse and you can sense that they were waiting for something to happen. Their many other television spots included Crackerjack! and The Basil Brush Show Gray said, We would do anything, because we wanted to work.

We might even do a social club in the early evening and then a cabaret club at midnight. All I remember now is humping the equipment around.In the late Sixties Mud appeared on Opportunity Knocks but came second. We would do anything if we were going to be a wee bit different and cheer people up.As a semi-pro band, Mud was working hard, so when they made it, said Gray, it wasn’t a shock to our system, as we were doing gigs five or six nights a week and we had daytime jobs We had five years of working hard every night. “We had taken the poem and put a tune to it,” Gray said in 1994: It was a needletime hit. Nobody bought it, but it was played a hell of a lot, and this helped with gigs It’s a good example of our approach, actually. They made their first appearance together at the Streatham Ice Rink.Their first single, “Flower Power” (1967), was released for the Summer of Love and was produced by Junior Campbell of Marmalade; it was followed by a vocal version of the poem “Up the Airy Mountain”. He was influenced by a cousin who played him a 78 rpm of “Hound Dog” by Elvis Presley and he loved Presley’s early films like G.I Blues.