Ted Nugent

Ted Nugent, born in 1948, earned the nickname the Motor City Madman the honest way: by plugging in a Gibson Byrdland and playing it like a man possessed. He first made his name as lead guitarist of the Amboy Dukes, a psychedelic and hard rock outfit he started in 1963, and when that band was done he went out under his own name.

The solo records are where the Nuge lives. Ted Nugent in 1975, Free-for-All in 1976 and Cat Scratch Fever in 1977 are bluesy, frenzied, blow-the-doors-off hard rock, and they sold by the millions, as did the 1978 live monster Double Live Gonzo!. "Stranglehold" is the centerpiece, a slow-burning slab of menace with a riff like a slammed car door. For much of the early run he let others handle the singing, among them Derek St. Holmes, Charlie Huhn and even Meat Loaf, but he took the mic himself for "Cat Scratch Fever", his biggest hit.

On stage he was a force of nature, and in the late '80s he turned up in the supergroup Damn Yankees. Since the 2000s he has been as loud about hunting, guns and conservative politics as he ever was with a guitar.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.