In 1974, Bad Company hurtled to the top of the US chart with their eponymous debut album, which also reached No 3 in the UK. Featuring former members of Free, Mott the Hoople and King Crimson, they were rock’s latest supergroup, their pedigree confirmed by the fact that they shared a manager with Led Zeppelin, the formidable Peter Grant. Bad Company was also the first act signed to Zeppelin’s Swan Song label.

While the singer Paul Rodgers was the voice of Bad Company, the band’s guitarist and songwriter Mick Ralphs, who has died aged 81, was a vital ingredient in its success. Though modest about his own accomplishments, he was a versatile and skilful guitarist who could play anything from crunching power chords to delicate acoustic picking, and was also a major songwriting contributor.

He wrote their debut hit, Can’t Get Enough, a swaggering rocker that became the band’s trademark, and also the follow-up, Movin’ On, a Top 20 success in the US. His composition Ready for Love, also on the debut album, had originally appeared on his previous band Mott the Hoople’s album All the Young Dudes. Good Lovin’ Gone Bad, from Bad Company’s second album Straight Shooter, was a Top 40 hit on both sides of the Atlantic in 1975. The Rodgers/Ralphs composition Feel Like Makin’ Love, also from Straight Shooter, reached 20 on the UK chart and 10 in the US.

Bad Company’s first three albums all reached the US and UK Top Five, and after a slight falling-off in sales with Burnin’ Sky (1977), they scored another blockbuster with Desolation Angels (1979). The group disbanded after the release of Rough Diamonds (1982), with Ralphs commenting: “Bad Company had become bigger than us all and to continue would have destroyed someone or something.”

In 1986, Ralphs and Simon Kirke formed a new Bad Company, with Brian Howe as lead vocalist, and enjoyed some commercial success, particularly with the album Holy Water (1990). From 1994 until 1998, yet another version of the group featured Robert Hart as lead vocalist, but by then the original Bad Company magic had largely dissipated.

Outside the group, Ralphs released the solo albums Take This (1984), the live album It’s All Good (2001) and That’s Life (2003), and made two albums with the Mick Ralphs Blues Band, I Should Know Better (2013) and If It Ain’t Broke (2016). Also in 1984 he was part of David Gilmour’s touring band, promoting Gilmour’s solo album About Face. He became friendly with George Harrison (they were neighbours in Henley-on-Thames) and they co-wrote the song Flying Hour. This was released in 1988, on an EP included with copies of the limited edition book Songs By George Harrison.

Ralphs was born in Stoke Lacy in Herefordshire. “I’m a country boy,” he would say later. “Originally from Herefordshire, where the cattle come from.” He began his music career in his teens, and recalled being inspired by the Booker T & the MGs’ hit Green Onions. He initially played in a blues-rock band, the Buddies, who released an album in Italy, recorded during a residency at an Italian nightclub.

He then joined the Doc Thomas Group, which featured the bass player Peter Overend Watts and the drummer Terry Griffin. For a time the group were known as Silence, now featuring Verden Allen on organ.

With the aid of Dave Mason, the guitarist with Traffic, Ralphs got in touch with Island Records’ producer and A&R man Guy Stevens, who auditioned them in early 1969. He wanted to sign them, but was not impressed by their vocalist Stan Tippins. Ian Hunter was recruited in his place (with Tippins becoming the band’s road manager), and the band became Mott the Hoople, the name taken from a novel by Willard Manus.

Ralphs stayed with the group until late 1973, and was a regular contributor to the songwriting, but grew frustrated by their lack of success. “We never made any money, but we were out there having a hell of a good time, and that was all that mattered,” he told Guitar Player magazine. “But we got to the point where we were disillusioned inasmuch as we were working our asses off and not really getting anywhere.”

When their fourth album, Brain Capers (1971), flopped, Hoople were on the brink of splitting up when they were saved by David Bowie, who presented them with his song All the Young Dudes. “That was our salvation, really,” said Ralphs. “It was a big hit in England and America, putting the group on the map.”

Bowie produced the single and its similarly-titled parent album, which reached No 21 in the UK. The follow-up album, Mott (1973), went bigger still, in Britain and the US, but Ralphs was becoming disillusioned. “We got so closely associated with David Bowie that we couldn’t get away from that,” he said. “It was like we were tagged a glitter group.”

Ralphs was also becoming disgruntled at the way Hoople were treating his own songs. “I had songs like Can’t Get Enough and Movin’ On, which were never used with Mott because Ian Hunter couldn’t sing them,” he said. “They were just not his style.”

Fortuitously, he had met just the man to sing those songs. This was Rodgers, whose bluesy, soulful voice had been the trademark of Free and their worldwide hit All Right Now. Free had split up and Rodgers had been performing with the band Peace, but he and Ralphs quickly struck up a strong musical partnership, and found that between them they had a dozen or more songs they had written but which had not been used.

They recruited Free’s former drummer Kirke and the bass player Boz Burrell (previously with King Crimson), and named their new band Bad Company, after one of Rodgers’s songs.

In the 21st century, assorted iterations of Bad Company featuring the trio of Ralphs, Rodgers and Kirke once again took to the road, touring in Britain and the US in 2009-10. In 2013 Bad Company joined Lynyrd Skynyrd for a joint 40th anniversary tour.

However, after a Bad Company show at the O2 Arena in London in 2016, Ralphs suffered a severe stroke that left him in a nursing home until the end of his life.

Nonetheless he was able to express his pleasure at the news that Bad Company are due to be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in November 2025.

He is survived by his second wife, Susie Chavasse, by two sons, Ben and Jim, from his first marriage, which ended in divorce, and by three stepchildren.

• Michael Geoffrey Ralphs, musician and songwriter, born 31 March 1944; died 23 June 2025