Everything finally came together for Mott the Hoople in 1973. After years of grinding away in obscurity, elusive success finally followed via a well-timed Bowie-assisted commercial breakthrough with “All the Young Dudes” just as glam rock and Ziggy Stardust reached peak visibility in the UK. Mott presaged glam but their irony-laced hard rock crunch fit right in. None of their albums were flawless but this quasi-eponymous LP – their first as hitmakers – comes close. “All the Way From Memphis” is a witty, tragicomic peek behind the music business curtain. Ostensibly a travelogue about chasing his lost guitar on an American tour, Ian Hunter’s caustic lyrics “you look like a star but you’re still on the dole” deflate rock and roll myth while the R&B piano chords prop it up. The surreal arc of the rising celebrity is one of Hunter’s main themes but the other is the ignominious way it ends; “Hymn for the Dudes” and “Ballad of Mott the Hoople” are bitter, gorgeous elegies to a fallen star. And Mott themselves had plenty of great songs left in them, as the sleek, restrained “Whizz Kid” and the sweetly nostalgic “Honaloochie Boogie” proved.