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A little Gillan and a little Lord

The latest issue (February-March 2025) of the Rock Candy magazine has a feature on the “Deep Purple maestro’s other band” Gillan. We have no idea on the details, so please report if there’s something interesting in there.

jim_capaldi_dear_mr_fantasy_cd_cover

In other unrelated news, Dear Mr Fantasy – A Celebration for Jim Capaldi Featuring the Music of Jim Capaldi & Traffic, featuring contributions from Jon Lord on several tracks is being reissued on Cherry Red Records as 2CD/Blu-ray. It had been previously available on CD and DVD, so the addition of Blu-ray format is kinda new.

2CD / Blu-Ray video release of this special concert staged at the Roundhouse in London on 21st January 2007 to celebrate the life and music of Traffic co-founder and acclaimed solo artist Jim Capaldi. Aside from his work with Steve Winwood and Chris Wood in Traffic, (a band inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2004), Jim also worked with many other artists and was a successful solo performer in his own right.

A wonderful house band was joined by a stellar line-up of musicians to perform their favourite Traffic and Jim Capaldi songs including STEVE WINWOOD, PAUL WELLER, PETE TOWNSHEND, JOE WALSH, YUSUF / CAT STEVENS, GARY MOORE, BILL WYMAN, JON LORD, DENNIS LOCORRIERE, SIMON KIRKE and many others who performed to a full house.

Originally issued in 2007, this new Esoteric Recordings edition gathers together the concert recordings on two CDs and a multi-region Blu-ray video of the concert film, issued in this format for the first time, in a clam shell box set.

Thanks to our editor emeritus Benny Holmström on both counts.



17 Comments to “A little Gillan and a little Lord”:

  1. 1
    MacGregor says:

    “Deep Purple maestro’s other band” Gillan. We have no idea on the details, so please report if there’s something interesting in there.” The Karin lady from Denmark casts her spell again it seems. I suppose it is THS good folk who have allowed this occur. If they deleted all those posts from Uwe about Elvis this probably wouldn’t be happening. It is payback time from Karin it seems. When will this spell end we wonder? Cheers.

  2. 2
    Karin Verndal says:

    @1

    “The Karin lady from Denmark casts her spell again it seems.” <- what!?
    I have absolutely no idea what you mean 😄

    “It is payback time from Karin it seems. When will this spell end we wonder?”. <- Aarhh?!? 🥺😥 don’t you know me at all by now?
    The most awful and evil thing I could ever do to any of you, would be to serve you lukewarm coffee…… wait a minute! No no no – that kind of nastiness, I would never do!

    I will always serve you all the loveliest coffee available 😍
    In beautiful cups or mugs 😍
    While I let you listen to Purple 🤩🤩

  3. 3
    Uwe Hornung says:

    Karin loves everything from Ian except his best work outside of DP, namely IGB (wimmin don’t understand fusion) and Black Sabbath/Born Again (girls think that album is too doomy/dark/screamy). But that’s just how wimmin are, don’t expect anything too rational from them. Like waterfalls they cannot be tamed nor contained.

    But I personally believe she has cast some pagan mind-bending spell bewitching Svante and Nick:

    The site’s ablaze, the discussion’s on fire
    The woman’s flames are reaching higher
    We were fools to ignore her willin’
    All we hear is … “GILLAAAAAAAAAN”

    DC was prophetic. A rock’n’roll Nostradamus so to say: “I see danger rising from the Kingdom of Denmark!!!”

  4. 4
    Uwe Hornung says:

    The credits on at least the original release are misleading, Jon is not just on the five credited tracks, but on no less than four others as well, namely Love You ‘Til The Day I Die with Margo Buchanan, John Barleycorn with Joe Walsh, Pearly Queen with Paul Weller and Rock And Roll Stew with Dennis Locorriere (the Dr Hook lead singer), Margo Buchanan and Stevie Lange (first wife of Mutt).

    Hope they get the credits right this time.

    The Jim Capaldi Tribute was actually where Paul Weller and Jon Lord got to know each other first – hence Paul’s appearance at Jon’s Tribute years later where the Modfather performed Artwoods songs.

  5. 5
    David Black says:

    Don’t know about the Rock Candy article but IG is featured in this months Classic Rock being interviewed on the same era and it’s a good article. Not the standard questions and some of IG’s replies are quite spiky

  6. 6
    Uwe Hornung says:

    And who is this GILLAN band anyway? THE ONE AND ONLY IGB ROOLZ !!!

    https://youtu.be/nlqsYuJtS-w

    When Big Ian and John Gustafson did that Mk III shtick for once and pretended to be DC/GH in twin lead vocal attack. Actually, Mad Elaine in its frantic energy wasn’t that far off from what GILLAN would do later.

    Of course, Karin won’t like it. But do we mind disturbing the beast? Not at all, not at all, not in the least!!! 😈

  7. 7
    MacGregor says:

    @ 3 – ha ha ha, a good adaptation on the Burn verse Uwe, a touch dramatic of course but that is ok. Cheers.

  8. 8
    Karin Verndal says:

    @3
    “But I personally believe she has cast some pagan mind-bending spell”
    Did I actually had at least some of these powers, I would have used them yesterday in Sweden 😥
    So sorry for your loss dear neighbours 😰😰

  9. 9
    Karin Verndal says:

    @6
    Please be gentle today, I’m heartbroken 😢

  10. 10
    David Black says:

    Would have loved IG to re-do Mad Elaine on Gillan’s Inn. A “rock” band it would have given it the balls it lacked on the IGB version.

  11. 11
    Uwe Hornung says:

    The interesting thing about the IGB guys was that they were as seasoned musicians heavily inspired by proggy fusion and funky rhythms, but came all from a traditional rock background. So they always played their intricate stuff with a rock feel and attitude – IGB was a confident and loud band. Rockers pretending to be jazzers, but with a rocker‘s heart. That made their music so one of a kind.

    And John Gustafson was a hell of a bassist.

    https://youtu.be/EaBTicZMWbg

  12. 12
    MacGregor says:

    Phil Manzanera was also a guitarist who was very determined to not be like any other typical rock guitarist. A good breeding ground was Roxy Music for quite a few excellent musicians. Two really good articles & interviews with Manzanera below, talking about everything & anything with his career. Cheers

    https://www.guitarplayer.com/players/phil-manzaneras-top-five-career-defining-tracks

    https://www.guitarworld.com/artists/guitarists/roxy-music-phil-manzanera-50-years-of-music-guitars

  13. 13
    Uwe Hornung says:

    Great thanks for the interviews, Herr MacGregor! Consummate thinking man’s musician’s musician.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0eYj4o_N4Q

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITeWU9nR-kw

    There is actually a bit of Tommy Bolin in him, the way he approaches guitar.

    I was never aware of his Cuban roots, so that is where the sometime-similarities to Carlos Santana (Mexican roots) come from.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_eKF1RAeJvk

    Roxy Music fell through all the cracks in Germany in the 70s and early 80s: Too glam and dance-oriented for the proggies and too edgy for the people who liked glam pop or to move their butt, most people didn’t know what to make of them. But I thought they were really one of a kind and intriguing, who would cover a Neil Young number the way they did?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXoSiL8eiIQ

    John Gustafson is the only bassist who played with Roxy to ever receive an offer to join them as a band member – not just as a hired hand. He played on three consecutive albums of theirs (Stranded, Country Life and Siren), yet was mad enough to turn them down! Always a man of strange and erratic choices.

  14. 14
    MacGregor says:

    I remember in my younger days of hearing about Roxy Music but have to admit to not getting into them. I did buy Bryan Ferry’s Let’s Stick Together album a little later. A few remakes of a few Roxy songs & other covers by certain artists over the years, as was the hit Let’s Stick Together. I guess my tastes in music had broadened a little by then. I never went back to Roxy Music and didn’t know anyone who owned their records. These days the internet helps to recapture some of their music.
    Phil Manzanera would have to be one of the most under rated guitarists in rock music. A very respected musician and rightly so and look at all the musicians he has worked with all these years gone by. That Ronnie Scott’s live clip is sensational, what a band that is. This instrumental below ‘Diamond Head’ is originally from Phil’s first solo album. I know it from the ‘801 live’ album I used to own on vinyl. The first clip below is from Roxy Music live in 1976 & the second from an appearance on a Jool’s Holland BBC Radio show, a stunning version and a wonderful melody. That ‘Guantanamera’ song takes me back to my childhood Uwe, such an evocative wonderful vocal melody and song. Originally from 1929 according to what we read, well a least a first recorded version of it. It very well could be older. Thanks for the clips, much appreciated. Cheers.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LgTlt2J3g0

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76vZq_8AmbE

  15. 15
    Uwe Hornung says:

    And here he is with some other guitarist I forgot the name of, I think it’s Steve Hackett.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVAHP3brEVg

  16. 16
    MacGregor says:

    Manzanera was in Gilmour’s band for about eight years in all I think. I have that On An Island cd and live dvd filmed in London 2006. A wonderful concert and a very good band. Dick Parry guesting on sax and of course Richard Wright is on keyboards. That is the gig that David Bowie was a guest on ‘Comfortably Numb’ & the Syd Barrett classic ‘Arnold Layne’. Bowie was influenced as a youngster by Barrett. A superb performance from everyone. The second last live performing appearance ever from Bowie apparently. First link below is Arnold Layne, the second clip a short behind the scenes with the two Floyd musicians and Bowie, David Crosby and Graeme Nash who were there also at that concert singing on a song or two as they both did on the Gilmour album. Cheers.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9i9NCSt71hE

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOQhidUT7FQ

  17. 17
    David Black says:

    Got Rock Candy today and the article covers the same ground as classic rock but isn’t as interesting. There’s nothing we haven’t heard before.

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