SWEET AND SOUR

“IT’S BECOME A LAST MAN STANDING SITUATION NOW WITH STEVE’S PASSING,” SAYS ANDY SCOTT, THE LAST SURVIVING MEMBER OF THE CLASSIC SWEET LINEUP.

- MARTIN POPOFF

So says Sweet guitarist—and at times and in some manner, leader of the band—Andy Scott, upon the death of bassist and vocalist Steve Priest, from pneumonia June 4, 2020. This follows the deaths of lead vocalist Brian Connolly in 1997 and drummer Mick Tucker in 2002. Still, we are not here to be grim, but rather, celebrate the life of Steve and the band that he, Andy, Brian and Mick took to considerable chart and sales success, at least in the U.K. and mainland Europe.

Nor were we immune to the band’s glammy charms in North America either. A compilation version of the band’s third album, Desolation Boulevard, was RIAA-certified gold on May 25, 1976, a little less than a year after “Fox on the Run” and “Ballroom Blitz” became ecstasy-inducing roller-rink hits all over the U.S. and Canada. What followed was arguably more impressive — 1976’s Give Us a Wink is now hailed as a masterpiece in hard rock circles, and it too made a dent in the pop culture fabric, through a hit single called “Action,” an exquisite symphony of sound impossibly crammed into less than four minutes of event after musical event.

“Action,” with its vaulted vocal harmonies and its production sleight of hand, had the band compared favorably to Queen, but of course, in many ways, evidenced by a slew of glam-era hits from ’71 through to ’73, Sweet were there doing this first. A series of career mishaps and miscalculations would ensure that the band’s arc would go in the opposite direction to Queen’s, but that doesn’t mean that an impressive catalog has not been left behind for us to enjoy.