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Long Live Rock ‘n’ Roll Story
Jerry Bloom of More Black Than Purple fame has written a new book — Long Live Rock ‘n’ Roll Story — which covers history of the Rainbow album.
This book, the first in a planned series on ‘landmark’ rock albums focuses on Rainbow’s 1978 release Long Live Rock ‘n’ Roll, a pivotal album within the band’s roster.
Upon its release in April 1978 Long Live Rock ‘n’ Roll fans considered it a more commercial album than the previous two releases with indications that band leader Ritchie Blackmore was trying to steer the music towards obtaining greater commercial recognition within the world’s biggest record market; America.
Having recorded the previous two albums in a combined period of barely over a month, Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow’s third studio album took almost a year to make. Recorded at the Strawberry Studios in the haunted Chateau d’Herouville near Paris, it was the last album to feature singer Ronnie James Dio, and saw the band struggle to cope with in-wranglings, sackings, sudden departures and intervention from the spiritual world!
Along with recollections from the band and crew, Ritchie Blackmore biographer Jerry Bloom details the full story behind the making of this ‘landmark’ album that included the classic songs Kill The King, Gates Of Babylon and Long Live Rock ‘n’ Roll.
With Blackmore steering Rainbow towards a much more commercial approach with the albums that followed, to many fans Long Live Rock ‘n’ Roll was the last Rainbow record to truly represent the style that the band originally set out to produce, with its blend of renaissance inspired chord progressions, and mystical, and medieval inspired lyrics. Includes a track by track analysis, selected discography & 8-page colour section, all combined in a ‘CD size’ book designed to sit on your shelf, alongside the album as its perfect companion.
An essential read for all fans of Rainbow and classic rock music in general.
Rainbow’s Long Live Rock ‘n’ Roll Story by Jerry Bloom
Wymer Publishing
ISBN: 978-0-9557542-2-7
Format: paperback (125x140mm), 64 pp
Price: £7.99
Publication date: 5th June 2009
Category: Non-fiction
The book can be ordered directly from the publisher.
Thanks to Dima Zykov and Wymer Publishing for the info.
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing
as amember of MBTP since it’s inception, i am sure jerry has done a great job. hopefully the text will not be lifted directly from his excellent book “black night”. already ordered it jerry!
May 30th, 2009 at 19:39Long Live Jerry Bloom.Long Live Rock’n’Roll.Long Live Ritchie Blackmore.
May 31st, 2009 at 01:15gates of babylon…… never recognised but probably one of the best song from a rock band . perfection in every aspect. all parts are beautifully played (lyrics, music, everything is fantastic on that song )and for me the best guitar solo of monsieur Ritchie Blackmore.
May 31st, 2009 at 17:20long live RB and DP.
Okay …
Long Live Rock ´N´ Roll,
Long Live Ritchie Blackmore,
but:
In fact who is Jerry Bloom ?
A member of the DP family ? No !
He is just a guy who want´s to make money with Ritchie and Co…
Sorry, thats my view of this !
-kraatzy-
May 31st, 2009 at 17:21I really enjoyed the other book by Jerry,BLACK NIGHT
May 31st, 2009 at 18:30Hopefully I ll be able to find my copy of this one soon in the mailbox.
@3
You couldn’t be more right, but at least he has tapped into some of the best and most important to me of photos from Ritchie’s early pre-Purple days. Somebody has to stay on top of that material and he seems to be in pocket enough for the job. Plus this is an interesting idea for sure, I hope it’s decent.
I’m not the biggest fan of MBTP but… also, appearing in PIRATE videos on the subject of Blackmore and Purple is about as ill advised as it gets.(ouch!)
June 1st, 2009 at 15:30Hi Kraatzy, As mentioned by previous posts Jerry Bloom is the Editor of ‘ More Bllack than Purple ‘ an inet fanzine. He has done numerous interviews with Ritchie and other members of the Purple/ Rainbow family. And he is quite good at it.
However, BLACK KNIGHT is an unauthorized biography and I’m fairly certain that LONG LIVE ROCK AND ROLL STORY wasn’t authorized by
June 1st, 2009 at 18:38Ritchie or his management, and probably did not receive any money from either of Mr. Bloom’s projects on Ritchie’s career.
Really liked the Black Knight-book, so am looking forward to this one also. Hair-splitting aside, Bloom has done good work over the years, so it should be good.
June 1st, 2009 at 19:59agreed……….@3 Gates Of Babylon is simply
June 1st, 2009 at 22:22OUTSTANDING!
Thanks for the comments, good and bad! I’m thick skinned so can take anything that comes my way. Somewhat bemused by the comments that I’m only in it for the money though and that Blackmore hasn’t received any money from them! I can’t see I’m any different to anyone else who has written books on the subject matter. Don’t recall anyone suggesting the authors of previous books on Rainbow or Deep Purple should give the proceeds to Blackmore and Co. As for the debate over authorised or unauthorised the suggestions are that somehow authorised means better. But irrespective of that, can anyone seriously see Ritchie Blackmore authorising anyone to write about him, and even if they did, don’t you think it would be so heavily sanitised as to not be worth the paper it was written on?
As for More Black than Purple, just to correct you, it isn’t an “inet fanzine” or indeed an Internet one but a full colour properly printed magazine.
As for the comments about appearing in Pirate videos, I had no idea when I was asked to do them that the material wasn’t being licensed and have since severed all connections with those responsible for producing them. However as for being “about as ill-advised as it gets”, I think many people the world over have done far more heinous things than that! It makes me sound as dodgy as a politicians expenses claims!
Keep on rocking.
PS. Lord and Hughes were superb at Childline gig last night.
June 2nd, 2009 at 21:18I stand corrected about the ‘ fanzine ‘, Jerry. thank you.
I also wasn’t implying ‘ authorized ‘ is better than ‘ authorized ‘. I was merely addressing an incorrect assumption as to the proceeds of your work and not implying anything negative.
June 4th, 2009 at 01:26CORRECTION: the second word in quotation marks should have been ‘ unauthorized ‘.
June 4th, 2009 at 01:29Hi Jerry
Read your Black Knight with great pleasure.
In the last few weeks I ve been indulging in lots of Foreigner music and Lou Gramm and Mick Jones and…….etc
I tried to find some more info on Mick Jones, the guitarplayer and mainman besides Lou.
In your book I read about Nero And The Gladiators who were big for a while in Britain during the arly 60s.
And that RB was very much inspired by this lot.
And now I found out that Mick Jones was in that outfit, which I did not know before ofcourse.
So, in a way, one could say, Mick was there first and not Ritchie?
June 5th, 2009 at 13:25Mick Jones in The Gladiators? Never knew that. My guess is it must have been a bit later as Ritchie only referred to Colin Green, so Jones possibly replaced them. They did do a later single in ’63.
Glad you liked Black Knight. I’d like to do a rewrite at some stage as I have loads of new info, especially as I have interviewed two of the ex-wives since it was published!
June 6th, 2009 at 07:55I found some Nero and The Gladiators stuff on You Tube. Great stuff and completely understandable as an inspiration to Ritchie.
I could found no trace of Mick Jones in the clips on the Tube.
You might be right he was later than Colin Green and, so called axe hero Joe Moretti, another Italian!!!!
Usually I kind of get annoyed noticing updates of something I just bought but…..
June 7th, 2009 at 11:08Two ex wives?!
Might give us some great juicy stuff on our man?
Hallo Jerry!
I haven´t got around to ordering the Llrn´roll book yet, but i will. (Having spent the last months in and out of hospitals, i haven´t done much else of anything…)
An updated version of “Black Knight”? Go for it! I totally loved it the first time around, and i´d have no problem with buing it again! Really like your work!
All the best!
Soren
June 7th, 2009 at 11:48hi jerry, hope you’re well. i remember
our phone call, and that i was quite candid about the LLRnR recordings…
drop me a line at truebeliever.de?
thanks, tc
June 8th, 2009 at 07:47I did say I’d like to re-write the book as there is a wealth of new info but sadly I haven’t been able to convince the publishers of the merit of this yet, despite the fact that they did exactly that with their Keith Moon bio.
I’ll keep on plugging away though.
June 8th, 2009 at 13:10I m reading Michael Heatlys book on DP right now.
Amazing that I still keep on finding new facts and details and stuff.
So much history, so many persons…..
I just looked up on You Tube the band Spooky Tooth, because it not only featured Mick Jones, leadguitarplayer for Foreigner and as far as I know part of Nero and the Gladiators, but also singer Mike Harrison.
Mike Harrison was checked out by Lord and RB at the beginning.
Even more interesting, I read that only recently…..I think in Black Knight, That Ian Gillan refused the job before they found Rod Evans.
Also looked up a lot of The Searchers with Chris Curtis who fell out with Lord in the beginning after having started the process of starting up a band.
First time I ever saw and heard him sing and drum.
But I recognised Needles and Pins
Oh my God, so much to explore
June 9th, 2009 at 13:50I need 900 lives!!!
Good luck with the new Rainbow book Jerry. I was just wondering, as I have not read it – does Black Knight cover the Battle Rages On Tour? I’ve read and watched numerous interviews on this, and remain completely baffled as to why Blackmore decided he wanted out of Purple. Even Gillan seemed genuinely puzzled in interviews, as opposed to knowing the answer but not letting on.
I thought something must have happened during the tour, but I found a video clip on YouTube recently of Battle Rages On tour rehearsals. Blackmore sits on a stool looking completely disinterested in being there. Of course I may be unfairly maligning the man – it was only a rehearsal after all, and he played the music well enough. And of course he played a blinder on some nights on the tour (sadly not the night I went to, though). I wondered if the seeds of his discontent had been sown earlier and, at the end of the day, what it was really all about.
If the answer is “buy my book” – that’s fine 🙂
June 9th, 2009 at 20:08Be careful about what you read, Priest. A LOT of the narratives in Rock and Roll books are mere sensationalism, outright fabrications based upon unreliable sources.
June 9th, 2009 at 21:12…or a reliable source’s words are twisted.
June 9th, 2009 at 22:00I wouldn’t be so crass as to say buy my book, but Black Knight covers the whole story up to Blackmore’s Night. Interviews with band, crew and my from my own eyes (I went to 10 shows on the BRO tour) help to paint the picture of the ’93 saga. That said I thought it was fairly well documented that the friction between the pair largely resulted in Blacker’s decision.
June 11th, 2009 at 07:27@ 21 and 22
I am very aware of that possibility, Gary.
ALL THE TIME!!!!!
But I cant stay off the stuff, man!!!!
Btw, ever heard of the Edgar Broughton Band?
June 11th, 2009 at 13:09No I haven’t, Priesy. But trusting your insticncts I checked them out on the net. Formed at the same time and place as Deep Purple !
If they’ve been around THAT long, they’ve gotta be good 🙂
Oh, and Jerry, none of my recent remarks were directed at you in any way…
June 15th, 2009 at 17:23No I haven’t, Priest. But trusting your insticncts I checked them out on the net. Formed at the same time and place as Deep Purple !
If they’ve been around THAT long, they’ve gotta be good 🙂
Oh, and Jerry, none of my recent remarks were directed at you in any way…
June 15th, 2009 at 17:24Jerry!give me a call, please, there#s a LOT more to this
story than you’d believe,criminal management is just the start of it. if you don’t have my number, mail me at
http://www.truebeliever.de.
‘blackmore#s night mare’ is from me, by the way, and of course it’s a tasteless joke.
best, tc
June 23rd, 2009 at 12:20regarding #10… keep going at it jerry. you are doing a fine job. don’t let the cynics get you down! ritchie has forgotten his past. us sad longtime fans will always regard his ‘rock’ years with great affection, it is just the way it is. i would not give up my impessions (first and present) of all the great DP and rainbow performances we have been given over the years. the BN stuff will continue to give some pleasure and bemusement for some time i am sure.
June 25th, 2009 at 03:22take care all, scott
Unfortunately, according to Amazon, Jerry’s book is out of print ( already ).
July 2nd, 2009 at 00:39It’s not out of print, it’s not in stock with Amazon, their information is misleading. But it can be bought direct by following the link here from the publisher’s own website: http://www.wymeruk.co.uk/Store/
July 2nd, 2009 at 18:57I had a problem with ordering too
Luckily I found my good friend Tonny Steenhagen, wellknown in for example DPAS circles, willing to arrange something.
I hope to see it soon.
Still have to get my butt into becoming a member of the More Black than purple club, Jerry.
Me ashamed but in the beginning I felt that the contents would be a heavy input of BN material and THATS not the main reason I m interested in the man, ahem.
Cheers.
LONG LIVE ROCK AND ROLL!!!!!
July 3rd, 2009 at 13:41Thank you, Jerry ! I’m glad you corrected me
What I saw was, ‘ Out of Print – Limited Availability ‘.
You really should take that up with Amazon.
July 3rd, 2009 at 15:20Good luck.
Re; post 31: When MBTP started it focused mainly on RB’s current activities (Rainbow, then BN) but now we cover right across the board, with the emphasis on more historical stuff. For example the forthcoming issue features articles on Stormbringer, the forthcoming remastering of Rainbow’s back catalogue and a very interesting interview with Drew Thompson on the making of the new Purple double disc DVD.
July 5th, 2009 at 09:21Hi Jerry
Still looking at my doormat for your book
Cant wait…..
Will try to arrange my payment for your More Black Than Purple
Again, aswell for others, how does one pay when located in Europe?
July 10th, 2009 at 19:54Everyone can pay the same way online with a credit or debit card, it’s that simple! http://www.wymeruk.co.uk/Store/ other possible ways of paying are also listed on the website.
July 11th, 2009 at 13:00As a more casual fan of DP & Rainbow, even a casual fan would notice that whatever band RB is in undergoes NUMEROUS line-up changes and of direction. Might be RB is the center of such storms – being unable to keep a consistent line-up. Perhaps if DP & Rainbow kept intact – especially the Dio/Blackmore/Powell/Daisley line-up they would have had even great success and notoriety than they had. But alas it was not meant to be (imho).
April 25th, 2018 at 05:06Each track exhibits something slightly different – each is excellent, and together they make for an album that’s as close to perfect as you could ask for.
The range of both musical style and lyrical execution are an absolute joy to behold, with the title track, Long Live Rock & Roll setting the scene, the rest of side A building up to the crescendo which is Kill the King on side B, before winding down to the tragic (but tragic in the best possible way) Rainbow Eyes.
If anyone claims rainbows are for sissies, tell them to listen to this album.
April 29th, 2019 at 15:31