The Rock-Steady Straight Shooter

Remembering Bad Company's Mick Ralphs (1944–2025)

- NICK BOWCOTT

ON JUNE 23, the guitar world lost a true legend – Mick Ralphs of Bad Company and Mott the Hoople fame. He was 81. Besides being an amazing songwriter, Ralphs was a criminally underrated blues/rock guitarist who played with wonderful feeling, phrasing, melody, groove and tone. He was a master of restraint who could say more with a few perfectly placed notes than most shredders can say with a furious flurry of “Look at me!” sweep arpeggios. Ralphs knew when not to play; he’d use poignant pauses between phrases to let his guitar sing and his melodies breathe. Yes, sir – sometimes silence and the notes you choose not to play are just as important as the ones you do play. As Ian Hunter – Ralphs’ old Mott the Hoople partner in crime – once said: “Mick always played for the song, not the spotlight. He was the soul of the riff.”

When you combine those playing sensibilities with Ralphs’ almost uncanny ability to pen seminal rock songs, the results are rare and magical. Ralphs crafted gems such as “Can’t Get Enough,” “Moving On,” “Simple Man” and “Good Lovin’ Gone Bad,” many of which were – and are – staples of classic-rock radio. As are “Feel Like Makin’ Love” and “Deal with the Preacher,” both of which he co-wrote with Bad Company’s Paul Rodgers.

Ralphs was born March 31, 1944, in Herefordshire, England. Like most guitarists of that era, his first guitar was a cheap one, a Rosetti Lucky 7, which coincidently happened to be the same guitar Paul McCartney played when the then-unknown Beatles went to Hamburg in 1960. The song that first inspired a young Ralphs to pick up the instrument was “Green Onions” by Booker T. & the MG’s, which came out in 1962. It was the song’s groove and “nasty” guitar playing that planted the seed.