Electric Warrior
Occupation
- Marc Bolan - vocals, guitar
- Mickey Finn - Congas
- Steve Currie - Bass
- Bill Legend - drums
- Ian McDonald - saxophone
- Burt Collins - flugelhorn
- Howard Kaylan - Vocals
- Mark Volman - Vocals
- Rick Wakeman - keyboards on Get It On
Electric Warrior is the 1971 released second official album by the British band T. Rex since this its original name " Tyrannosaurus Rex" abridging.
Album
Electric Warrior is the first album on which the group - a quartet - the instrumentation of a classic rock band used: vocals, guitar, bass and drums. In addition, the recordings of some songs saxophone, flugelhorn or piano has been added. It is still regarded as a classic of group T. Rex.
In the UK, the album took the first place for 8 weeks in the album charts in Germany, it came down to 14th place
The album contains the two single releases Get It On and Jeepster and the " groovy " Mambo Sun a number of danceable songs, but also some ballads like Cosmic Dancer, Life's a gas or accompanied on acoustic guitar and flugelhorn Girl.
Get It On was an international hit and was released under the name Bang a Gong ( Get It On ) in the United States, to avoid confusion with another song of the same name the group Chase. Bang a Gong ( Get It On ) was the only top 10 single-hit for T. Rex in this country.
Cover
The two-tone front of the album cover shows on dark, almost black tone which wrapped in golden shining light silhouette Bolans with electric guitar in front of a guitar amp. The photo is from Kerian " Spud " Murphy. On the back of the same color and the lyrics are printed in addition to the music information.
The English edition has a single cover, the Innersleeve shows on each side a drawing with the motifs of Bolan and Finn. The drawings are by George Underwood. The German edition came as a gatefold sleeve, inside the Underwood drawings found again: here, however, gold - on - black ( as opposed to the brown - on-white of the UK Innersleeve ).
Only the respective first editions in the UK and Germany had settled a black and white poster. The photo was also shot by Murphy, the subject is classical: it shows Bolan in the foreground sitting in a chair in his apartment, his bandmates Finn, Currie and Legend are in the background. The German poster is identical to the English and was also printed in the UK, only to recognize the fact that it was folded differently (UK = 8 parts / D = 6 parts). The poster is now rare and much sought: well-preserved complete albums with poster now score the 4 - to 5 - times the price compared to the original LP with no poster.
Label changes
Without Marc Bolan 's consent published the record label Fly / Cube Jeepster as a follow-up single. Because the contract with Fly / Cube already expired at the end of 1971 and would have had to be extended and because Bolan did not agree with the publication policy of the record label, changed Bolan from 1972 to the British EMI over, with his own label T. Rex Wax Co. where he significant control over his publications received.
This also resulted in Germany in a change in the distribution rights of the T. Rex records, which had since the beginning of 1971 Ariola. It was agreed that the entire Fly / Cube catalog, including the small former record label Regal Zonophone from Tyrannosaurus Rex periods was driven since 1972 by Polydor, while future recordings on EMI or the sublabels T. Rex Wax Co. continues to stayed the hand of the Ariola.
For this reason there was in Germany from Electric Warrior, as well as the single Jeepster / Life's a gas in addition to the original Ariola spending from 1971 nor the beginning of 1972, published by Polydor.
Title list
All songs written by Marc Bolan
Electric Warrior - Remastered / Extra tracks
Among the numerous CD releases, a 2003 is on the Import Label ( megaphone Import Service ) or Rhino / Wea released, digital revised edition with 6 bonus tracks and an interview:
All songs written by Marc Bolan
Others
Some titles of Electric Warrior served as the soundtrack for the feature film Billy Elliot - I Will Dance, whose action takes place mid-80s.