The nucleus of The Sweet came together in 1966, when drummer Michael Tucker (b. 17 July 1947, Harlesden, London, England) and vocalist Brian Connolly (b. 5 October 1945, Hamilton, Scotland) played together in Wainwright's Gentlemen, a small-time club circuit band whose repertoire comprised a mixture of Motown, R&B and psychedelia. The pair broke away to form Sweetshop, later shortened to just Sweet, with Steve Priest (b. 23 February 1948, Hayes, Middlesex) on bass and Frank Torpey on guitar. After releasing four unsuccessful singles on Fontana and EMI, Torpey was replaced by first Mick Stewart, and then Mick by Andrew Scott (b. 30 June 1949, Wrexham, Wales) and the new line-up signed to RCA. The band was introduced to the writing partnership of Chinn and Chapman, who were to provide the band with a string of hit singles. Their initial success was down to bubblegum pop anthems such as “Funny Funny”, “Co-Co”, “Poppa Joe” and “Little Willy”. However, the band was writing their own hard-rock numbers on the b-sides of these hits. This resulted in Chinn/Chapman coming up with heavier pop-rock numbers, most notably the powerful “Blockbuster”, which reached number 1 in the UK at the beginning of 1973. The group's determinedly effete, glam-rock image was reinforced by a succession of Top 10 hits, including “Hellraiser”, “Ballroom Blitz”, “Teenage Rampage” and “The Six Teens”.
Sweet decided to take greater control of their own destiny in 1974 and recorded the album ‘Sweet Fanny Adams’ without the assistance of Chinn and Chapman. The album charted at number 27, but disappeared again after just two weeks. The work marked a significant departure from their commercially-minded singles on which they had built their reputation. “Set Me Free”, “Restless” and “Sweet F.A.” epitomized their no-frills hard-rock style. ‘Desolation Boulevard’ included the self-penned “Fox On The Run” which was to hit number 2 in the UK singles chart. This gave the band confidence and renewed RCA's faith in the band as a commercial proposition. However, as Sweet became more of an albums band, the hit singles began to dry up, with 1978's “Love Is Like Oxygen” being their last Top 10 hit.
The first album for new label Polydor, ‘Level Headed’, found Sweet experimenting by combining rock and classical sounds "a-la clavesin", an approach similar to UK band ELO - indeed "Love Is Like Oxygen" is often mistaken for an ELO song. Largely recorded at Château d'Hérouville near Paris, France, the resulting Level Headed album represented a new musical direction with its Led Zeppelin influenced rock style, interspersed with ballads accompanied by a 30-piece orchestra. The ballad, "Lettres D'Amour", featured a duet between Brian and emerging singer Stevie Lange. Whilst the band had seen Andy Scott and Steve Priest occasionally sing lead on an album track, this album tellingly saw Brian relegated to singing lead on only half the tracks. With the addition of session and touring musicians keyboardist Gary Moberley and guitarist Nico Ramsden, Sweet undertook a short European and Scandinavian tour followed by single British concert at London's Hammersmith Odeon on 24 February 1978. However, "Love Is Like Oxygen" (January 1978) was their last UK, U.S. and German Top 10 hit. Scott was also nominated for an Ivor Novello Award for co-composing "Love Is Like Oxygen". One more single from the album, "California Nights" (May 1978) which saw Steve Priest feature as the lead vocalist only peaked at #23 on the German charts.
Between March and May 1978 Sweet extensively toured the USA. On this occasion, however, they had been reduced in status to a support act for Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band. The tour included a disastrous date at Birmingham, Alabama, at which visiting Capitol Records executives in the audience were to see Brian Connolly give a drunken and incoherent performance that terminated early in the set with his collapse on stage, leaving the rest of the group to play on without him. The band regrouped in England before resuming the US tour in late May supporting Seger and other acts, including Foghat and Alice Cooper, until they returned to the UK in early July. The band began work on their next album in mid-August with writing sessions at Clearwell Castle. Unfortunately, Brian's alcoholism was steadily becoming a greater issue. Although all the Sweet members lived the extreme rock lifestyle during the 70s - with alcohol, drugs, and women, among other things - the others were not as severely affected as Connolly. Andy Scott told Mojo magazine in 2008: "I think we'd known there was a problem [with Brian] as far back as the first U.S. tour in 1975. We'd say: 'Let's try having a non-drinking day', but it was hard." However, the band left Clearwell in late September with some promising material.
In late October Sweet arrived at The Town House studio, Shepherds Bush, London, to write and record new material for their next album. A number of tracks featuring Connolly were recorded but were deemed unsatisfactory, and his contributions were erased from the ensuing album ‘Cut Above The Rest’. Two tracks featuring Brian on lead vocals, "That Girl" and "Stay With Me", remain from the sessions.
On February 23, 1979, Brian Connolly's departure from Sweet was announced. Publicly, Connolly was said to be pursuing a solo career with an interest in recording country rock. Sweet continued as a trio with Scott and Priest now both handling lead vocals (Scott says that Ronnie James Dio, who'd just departed from Rainbow, was approached in January 1979 to join as the group's new singer. But Priest disputes this. At any rate, Dio ended up joining Black Sabbath shortly thereafter). Keyboard player Gary Moberley continued to augment the group on stage and on record and guitarist Ray McRiner also joined their touring lineup in 1979 as well as contributing songs to their next album, Waters Edge, which was released in Europe under that title and as Sweet VI in the U.S. One more studio album, Identity Crisis was recorded in 1980-81 and Sweet performed their last live show at Glasgow University on March 20th, 1981. They disbanded in 1982 while Identity Crisis was only released in Germany that same year.