Writer: Ian Hunter
Producers: Mick Ronson and Ian Hunter
Recorded: January 1979 at the Power Station in New York City
Released: April 1979
| Players: | Ian Hunter — vocals, guitar Mick Ronson — guitar, vocals Gary Tallent — bass Roy Bittan — keyboards Max Weinberg — drums Ellen Foley, Eric Bloom, Rory Dodd — backing vocals |
| Album: | You're Never Alone With A Schizophrenic (Chrysalis, 1979) |
Released as a single in November 1979, “Cleveland Rocks” did not chart but did gain Ian Hunter his first significant airplay since his debut solo single, “Once Bitten Twice Shy,” four years earlier.
Hunter wrote the song “Cleveland Rocks” in 1977 as a tribute to the city that had supported his old band, Mott The Hoople, as well as his solo work.
The song was first recorded as “England Rocks” and released as a U.K. single in the summer of 1977. He changed it back to its original lyric for inclusion on the album You're Never Alone with A Schizophrenic.
Hunter still considers Schizophrenic to be “the best solo album I ever did” but notes that it was “panned by the English rock critics because I was a U.S. resident. Very small minded.”
The album was co-produced by longtime cohort Mick Ronson, who had been in David Bowie's Spiders From Mars and was briefly in Mott The Hoople before the group broke up in 1974. Schizophrenic features an all-star cast of players, including members of Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band, Blue Oyster Cult frontman Eric Bloom, and singer Ellen Foley.
Schizophrenic reached Number 35 on the Billboard 200, the best chart showing of Hunter's solo career.