Mott the Hoople & Bad Company’s Mick Ralphs Passes at 81

(Mick Ralphs, right with Paul Rodgers)

“Initially, Bad Company was not even supposed to be a group at all, ‘super’ or otherwise,” writes Alex Williams in a warm tribute to guitarist Mick Ralphs in the New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/24/arts/music/mick-ralphs-of-dead.html?campaign_id=2&emc=edit_th_20250626&instance_id=157301&nl=today%27s-headlines&regi_id=33532837&segment_id=200688&user_id=9071d03d452dfbb4c5adbd6635ac14ec.
Inexplicably, Bad Company, the British rockers synonymous with Seventies arena-filling rock, made up of equal parts of two of England’s most-beloved early Seventies bands, Free and Mott the Hoople, had never even been so much as nominated for the Hall of Fame in twenty-one years of eligibility. Can’t be. Must be a typo, right?Bad Company, fronted by Paul Rodgers, universally acclaimed by his peers and music writers as one of the greatest natural-born singers ever, can’t get enough of the Rock Hall’s love to even give the fans a vote…that is, finally until this year.

In rock’n’roll just as in life in general, justice delayed is justice denied, and the Rock Hall needed to be cognizant that Bad Company co-founding guitarist/songwriter Mick Ralphs had to be sidelined  a few years back due to a serious health setback. The Hall of Fame dallied on the inductions of YES and Deep Purple until the deaths of Chris Squire and Jon Lord made the omissions of these pillars of Progressive Rock and Hard Rock, respectively, a PR problem for the organization. Without so much as nominating Bad Company for twenty-one consecutive years and thus opening up the fan vote, the Rock Hall risked another self-inflicted wound to its credibility until mercifully coming to its senses just this Spring by first nominating and then electing Bad Company for induction to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame slated for the Fall. Sadly, co-founding guitarist/songwriter Michael “Mick” Ralphs died before the official ceremony. Listen here to Rodgers, Ralphs, and drummer Simon Kirke for more. –Redbeard