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When an artist of Mitch Ryder’s calibre looks back over their storied six-decade career and tells
you their latest album is essential listening, you should take that statement seriously. Ryder, as
anyone who has followed the roots and branches of American music will attest, is one of the
faces carved onto rock ‘n’ roll’s Mount Rushmore, and the spiritual forefather to every blue-
collar firebrand – from Bruce Springsteen to Ted Nugent – who ever turned up their amp and
hollered their truth. He’s the rock ‘n’ roll pioneer who was there at the flashpoint in the late-’50s.
He’s the hitmaker who tore up the charts in the mid-’60s with Detroit Wheels cuts like Jenny
Take A Ride and his reworking of Devil With A Blue Dress On. Amongst his myriad claims to
fame, Ryder was both the last man to play with Otis Redding (in 1967), and the first living white
artist inducted into the R&B Hall Of Fame (in 2017).
For many musicians of Ryder’s vintage and status, age heralds a creative slowdown and
reliance on the hits. But as he broaches his eighth decade, the Michigan-born singer-songwriter
remains in constant motion, his backstory only rivalled by what is yet to come. It’s an attitude
epitomised by the new Don Was (Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones, Bonnie Raitt, Iggy Pop) -
produced studio album With Love, released on Ruf, and packed with tough,
tender, personal songs that stand alongside anything in his catalogue.
“Out of the 21 studio albums that I have recorded, this one is in the top two,” considers Ryder,
reflecting on a catalogue that began with 1966’s Take A Ride with The Detroit Wheels. “It is one
of the most honest albums I’ve ever made. Not that the other ones were lies, but I was able to
access previously hidden feelings.”
The stellar musicianship was certainly a catalyst, but no doubt the real driving force behind With
Love are Ryder’s ten new originals: as smart, satirical, witty and wry a collection of songs as
the veteran songwriter has ever gathered on an album. From the woozy Latin-rock grooves of
Oh What A Night and Pass It To The Right (an ode to joint etiquette at a hedonistic party) to
Sanguine’s playful soul and the Stonesy chop of Wrong Hands, there is still no second-guessing
Ryder’s songcraft. “Everything on the album is autobiographical,” he explains of a tracklisting
that plays out with The Artist’s ghostly self-analysis and the joyous-sounding but morbid R&B
of Just The Way It Is, exploring the inevitability of life and death. “One Monkey is about my drug
addiction and how I overcame it. Fly is about my career and being happy about it, the trajectory
and body of work I was able to produce.”
Incredibly, more than a half-century since Mitch Ryder first lit up the rock ‘n’ roll radar, With
Love proves this lifelong visionary still has creative gas in the tank. “Practice makes perfect,”
he smiles of a growing discography that is plainly the work of a man still reaching for something
greater. “I haven’t gotten there yet but I’m working on it…”
