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Thirty seven years after Raw Power, Iggy and The Stooges performed the album at the Hammersmith Apollo, part of ATP’s Don’t Look Back Series. They opened with the title track and followed it with the equally seminal Search & Destroy, two songs so raw and powerful no other act would have anything left. But these originators kept up the pressure for the next 90 minutes.

Shifting only minimal units in 1973, Raw Power has gone on to become a cornerstone for rock ‘n’ roll. Period. From Mick Rock’s cover, shot at what’s now the Scala, Kings Cross, to James Williamson’s diminishing guitar that closes Death Trip at the end of side two, and every single point in between.

Purists have criticised the production. But it wasn’t made for them. It was a template for the teenage rampage. Yes it’s Williamson/Pop to the fore, but remember, the Ashton axis, Ron on bass, Scott on drums, were only called up last minute. And David Bowie, who produced the record after sprinkling magic on Lou Reed’s Transformer and his own Ziggy Stardust in 1972, was a big Stooges fan. So it’s crazy to suggest he wanted to mix them down and out. Fact is, Bowie had to do the job in about 12 hours to secure the record’s release, and he caught energy and angst enough to feed the end of glam, punk, new wave, post punk and every guitar-led cult since. Right through to 2010. A point proved when Iggy himself remixed Raw Power in the 1990s and succeeded only in asking more questions, through a megaphone.

Not surprising then that Sony’s Legacy Edition spits/polishes/remasters the original. And completists/converts/critics alike are suddenly bigging up mix. Absence, clearly, makes the art grow stronger.

It’s packaged, fittingly, with a performance from the era. Recorded direct from the desk at Richards in Atlanta, Georgia Peaches includes half the album, together with a handful of prescient others, like Head On, Cock In My Pocket and Doojiman. Despite their wreckless edge, the Williamson/Pop shop held its mojo close, and the songs kept a-coming, a couple spilling over to the duo’s post-Stooges album Kill City.

But for all the extras, it’s the eight song Raw Power proper that (still) holds the attention. And here it is, as it should be, for the first time since 1997, for the vinylists who bought it in the 1970s/1980s, but turned in their turntables, and every generation since, who’ve heard the stories or seen the action but never had the record. Shake Appeal indeed…Play very loud. 

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