Never give up (Marc Hunter) (LP 2791 - 2793)

Marc Hunter  Fiji Bitter (Vinyl, CBS Records, 1979) ***  

Marc Hunter  Big City Talk (Vinyl, Mercury Records, 1981) ***

Marc Hunter  Talk To Strangers (CD, Roadshow Music, 1994) ****    

Genre: Pop/ rock, NZ music 

Places I remember: Slow Boat Records (vinyl copies), Real Groovy Records (CD)

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Southern Cross

Gear costume: One Of The Good Guys

Active compensatory factors: You can take Marc (and Todd) Hunter out of Dragon, but you can't take Dragon out of the Hunters.

These are three of Marc's five solo albums and given Marc and Todd appear on all three, it's natural it sounds like various stages of Dragon at times.

His first solo album, Fiji Bitter, set the template - a good looking, fashion conscious, good time party boy (the inner photo of him popping the cork on a bottle of champers sums him up well). He was also deeply involved in hard drugs, so it's a miracle he could actually sound this good. His vocals are always terrific throughout these three albums.

Second solo album, Big City Talk, was his first album of the eighties and so the sound veers towards a more sophisticated sound and even synth-pop at times, but Marc's vocals remain distinctive and superb. NZ guitar legend Kevin Borich appears on a few tracks.

The pick of the bunch is the 1994 album, and his last (he'd pass away 4 years later from throat cancer) - Talk To Strangers. I picked it up from a sale bin in Real Groovy many years ago and played it endlessly.

I have no idea why it's not on Spotify. It's a great collection of songs, and, for me, easily his best solo album.

Where do they all belong? I've never seen Communication or Night and Day (yes - he takes on the standards) but I'll grab them if I see them. His vocal ability never diminished, it's just such a waste that his punishing lifestyle of heavy smoking, heroin and hard drinking meant he died so young. He was 44.