Luther James Grosvenor (born 23 December 1946) is an English rock musician, who played guitar in Spooky Tooth, briefly in Stealers Wheel and, under the pseudonym Ariel Bender, in Mott the Hoople, Arthur Brown's Kingdom Come and Widowmaker.
Grosvenor was born in Evesham, Worcestershire, England, where he first began playing in local bands. He met Jim Capaldi, who later played with Traffic, with whom he formed a group called Deep Feeling.
Later he joined a group called The V.I.P.'s, in which Keith Emerson played for some time. The V.I.P.'s were renamed Art and later became Spooky Tooth. After leaving Spooky Tooth, he released a solo album, Under Open Skies (Island Records, 1971). According to Mott's lead singer Ian Hunter, interviewed in the documentary The Ballad of Mott the Hoople, the band were in Germany with Lynsey de Paul for the TV show Hits-a-Go-Go in Germany on 24 June 1973 when lead guitarist Mick Ralphs walked down a street bending a succession of car aerials in frustration. De Paul came out with the phrase "aerial bender", which Hunter later suggested to Grosvenor as a stage name. Grosvenor joined the band in 1973, replacing Ralphs. which was released in August 2010.
In 2011 Grosvenor released the If You Dare album, featuring Marc Eden on guest vocals
thumb|Grosvenor as Ariel Bender in 2020
In June 2018, performing as Ariel Bender, Grosvenor played three Mott The Hoople reunion shows with Hunter and 1974 Mott pianist Morgan Fisher, backed by Hunter's Rant Band. The shows were at festivals in Spain and the United Kingdom and a concert in Norway. In April 2019, performing as Ariel Bender, Grosvenor played 14 Mott the Hoople reunion shows – eight in the US, six in the UK – with Hunter and 1974 Mott pianist Morgan Fisher, backed by Hunter's Rant Band. Later in 2019, a planned MTH 74 11-city swing largely through the southern US was canceled because of Hunter's bout with tinnitus.
Discography
- 1971 : Under Open Skies
- 1996 : Floodgates
- 2001 : Floodgates – Anthology
- 2011 : If You Dare
- 2024 : Another Journey
- 2025 : I Really Don't Know
Media depictions
Grosvenor is featured along with Spooky Tooth in the 1970 documentary Groupies.