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Gillan talks IGB
Classic Rock Magazine has a new interview with Ian Gillan focusing on his Ian Gillan Band years:
Why the jazz-rock-fusion direction?
I don’t know exactly, it was all a bit chaotic. To start off with we didn’t really have any direction at all, because nobody knew what they were doing.
Of course, my hero Johnny Gustafson was in the Ian Gillan Band. I didn’t know him as a bass player at first; I just admired his incredible voice. He was in the Big Three and The Merseybeats; he was a bloody awesome singer. We also had Ray Fenwick on guitar and Mark Nauseous [Nauseef], the drummer.
The only problem with that was that they were all Weather Report fans. That’s where the jazz came from.
I listened to Clear Air… the other day when I knew I was going to do this interview and it’s an interesting album. The music’s quite mental and there are no boundaries at all, because no one really bothered to set them.
But my Christ, there’s not one backbeat from beginning to end on the entire record.
Read more in Classic Rock.
Thanks to Andrey Gusenkov for the info.
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing
‘Clair air turbulence’ is just un underrted album masterpiece…”there are no boundaries at all” in fact it was very innovative Jazz rock + Funk + Hard rock mixed together for unusual songs…but no one noticed it and this is very sad and unjustice…The rythm section too is one of the best I’ve ever listened in my whole life…
July 28th, 2012 at 17:17“Over the hill”: this song explain what I always tought…
I agree Roberto and also love the album. It sounds to me like these folks were all Frank Zappa fans as I can hear so much influence in there.
July 28th, 2012 at 21:31agree……clear air, imo is a brilliant album. sadly it didn,t get recognition it deserved……but i can and still do listen to it…..
July 29th, 2012 at 11:13I got away with reviewing it as Avant/Prog
July 29th, 2012 at 11:30@1 Clear air turbulence was not as good as ‘scarabus’ which included the great songs, poor boy hero, slags to bitches, mad elaine , and my personal fav….my baby loves me, which is a live track you can only get on the digitally re-mastered version. All said, you can really see the lyrical brilliance gillian displays on this album.
July 29th, 2012 at 12:35# 5 Me too think Scarabus was the best album by IGB.Yeah my baby loves me is in great form live.And yes,i love to read interviews by the purple guys.Anyway,i remember when child in time was released,and back in 74 to 76 i was wondering where on Earth was Ian Gillan.IGB was one of my memorable moments in life.I feel very lucky to be a purple fan,there’s so many great histories on it.And the crowd yelds Gillan Gillan Gillan Gillan….
July 29th, 2012 at 16:23I can only agree that IGB was a great band. Very different to Purple, but grat music. I saw them at Roskilde Festival in Denmark, at it was so huge to see Gillan again after the sillence. First time I saw him was with Purple in 1971 and then countless of time, also due to my work in ET Concert. Today I think a Gilland tour would be great. Please visit us with your fantasict Gillan songs. In fact I find them more interresting than another Purple tour with 95% purple songs from Blackmore/Lord days just not on level with the old days. So a BIG yes to a new Gilland tour – and play a few songs from your IGB days.
July 29th, 2012 at 17:17Always thought My Baby Loves Me was on the first IGB album.
July 29th, 2012 at 18:42I cherish the comments Ian makes about Colin Towns as he is my fav keyboarder besides Jon Lord. A really nice chap, met him a couple of times. What a pity that Colin is no longer into rock music.
July 29th, 2012 at 20:35‘Scarabus” was a very good album but in front of ‘Clair air turbulence’ it was like to innovative ideas in jail…a mix of generes restricted by rock only…and ‘my baby loves’ is probably the most standard rock song by the IGB…
July 29th, 2012 at 21:32Jazz-Rock/Fusion or whatever, IGB(especially Scarabus) gets a regular airing in my household, wonderful stuff!
July 30th, 2012 at 14:01I always thought that Tommy Bolin would have felt right at home on the IGB stuff, what with all of the jazz/rock fusion. It’s all good!
July 30th, 2012 at 20:07@12that would have been simply awesome…
July 31st, 2012 at 19:35To this day I think that Gillan (with considerable help from others) has recorded three ace albums outside of DP and these are CAT, Born Again and Accidentally on Purpose. All vastly different, but all great and severely underrated. CAT is a sonic pleasure even today. Nauseef and Gustafson were a dream combination.
Uwe
July 31st, 2012 at 21:48#12 absolutely, but it would have to be Tommy pre-75 before his fingers turned to sausage. Another very sad story.
August 1st, 2012 at 00:22Listen to 5 moons, thats really innovative stuff. Ians voice showing its musicallity and sensitivity to the extreme. Cant think of any other Rock singer that would have been able to deal with the IGB arrangements and make them so listenable to a wider audience. The shame was that IG was pidgeonholed as purely a hard rock singer and people were crying out for more DP type material at the time…Mr Universe just after this period was his best Hard rock period outside Purple in my mind 🙂
August 3rd, 2012 at 06:01Best IGB song? ‘Twin Exhausted’! Would loooove to hear it with a 12 minute version of the piano outro… 😉
August 3rd, 2012 at 23:35Glory Road and the Ian Gillan Band Child In Time were both unbelievable vocal albums. Double Trouble was something special too. Too bad this band was so mismanaged. How could something this fantastic go south financially so badly?
August 5th, 2012 at 08:16IMHO, “Clear Air Turbulence” is the best thing that Ian Gillan recorded with “Ian Gillan” name out of his Deep Purple´s career.
“Born Again” was another huge album, but it was recorded under the name of Black Sabbath.
August 29th, 2012 at 04:55CAT was probably the best IGB album… but the band just choose the wrong name for this music, as it is an aquired taste.
November 8th, 2012 at 07:54