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Mahavishnu Orchestra with vocals
Guitar World has a short piece based around an interview with Clem Clempson about his experience of auditioning with Deep Purple as Ritchie Blackmore’s replacement for a nascent Mark 4.
Although I think everyone enjoyed the playing we did together, it was clear that they didn’t just need a guitar player to replace Ritchie; they needed someone who could also fill Ritchie’s role as the main songwriter in the group. I definitely didn’t see myself as being the right man for the job in that respect.
I believe Tommy [Bolin] had lots of songs which were exactly what the band needed. And his style was more akin to Ritchie’s than mine. I was never into heavy rock as such. For me, there’s a subtle difference between Humble Pie and bands like Zeppelin, Purple, and Black Sabbath.
One of the highlights was spending a very late night with Glenn Hughes and David Bowie. We wrote a song based on a riff I had, and made plans for a new band, the idea was to be Mahavishnu Orchestra with vocals.
Read more in Guitar World.
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing
I politely disagree with Clem’s inherent modesty!
Much as I love Tommy and his work with the band, I think Clempson might have worked well and for a longer time in Mk IV. Of course he wouldn’t have been a firebrand like Ritchie or the flamboyant and exotically beautiful creature Tommy was, he had more of a Mick Taylor (a guitarist greatly rated by Ritchie which Mick Jagger never wanted to let go) vibe going and would have likely assumed a more introverted role in Mk IV, but I believe his guitar playing would have gelled with DP and created interesting records (and maybe more than just one too!).
He’s downplaying his songwriter abilities as well. If you look at what he did only shortly after with David Byron in Rough Diamond – a situation not so far removed from joining DP – , I hear musical ideas that would have worked with Purple too:
https://youtu.be/Dg9hvA_H2bk
You tell me that something like ‘Scared’ at 16:10 wouldn’t have had the hearts of DP fans melt. Jon Lord did say about the sessions with Clem that “he played beautifully”, but Blackmore’s enigmatic superstar image must have loomed (too) large. They felt they needed “star factor”, Clem is ‘just’ a musician much like Bernie Marsden and Micky Moody were years later.
Energetic music was certainly no stranger to him, I mean he played with Humble Pie, the epitome of getting asses off seats in US stadiums!!!
https://youtu.be/-gWqrP30YXQ
That said, Clem’s true love was always Colosseum, no two ways about it:
https://youtu.be/_uqT9rMZOB4
He didn’t even want to join Humble Pie as replacement for Peter Frampton, but was lured by Steve Marriott (who was sceptic at first, having only heard Clem in jazzy-proggy Colosseum) to play guitar on some Marriott demos and then talked into joining by motormouth Steve who broke the news to journalists before Clem had even said yes!!! 😂
Shortly before Cozy joined Rainbows, he had a power trio with Clem and Humble Pie bassist Greg Ridley called Strange Brew. They rehearsed, but no recording contract materialized.
May 16th, 2025 at 22:40I hear what Clem is thinking when talking about the ‘prolific’ co-songwriter situation. I agree with your comments Uwe in regards to his work with David Byron, there are a few good songs on that album. However that word ‘prolific’ springs to mind again. Did Clem really want that sort of input, or as you say pressure when playing in a very high profile band. He is a superb guitarist and a rather humble individual, so yes the Purple behemoth may have been too daunting for him. The other factor may have been the funk and soul element in DP, possibly. If he couldn’t feel as though he could have had an influence as a composer of sorts, would he have to play music he wasn’t into, be overshadowed perhaps. He does sound like a rather shy person too. A musicians musician, if that is the way to put it. Cheers.
May 17th, 2025 at 00:35Yes, “shy person” sums Clem up perfectly, very much like Mick Taylor who never adjusted to the Stones circus either. “Too daunting” too, yes, and maybe the DP guys noticed that he wasn’t dying to get the job. They were after all used to an alpha male handling guitar matters.
Tommy‘s overwhelming writing input on CTTB drowned out pretty much everyone else in the band and the album is no doubt great and fresh for it, but who says that the guitarist had to do all the work? Stormbringer had seen – to the chagrin of his devotees – Ritchie‘s main songwriter role in DP already diminish considerably and both DC and Glenn were chafing at the bit to have more of a say. But maybe Clem only found his songwriting feet with Rough Diamond, i.e. after the failed audition with DP, he certainly hadn’t written much in his years with Humble Pie which after Peter Frampton’s departure had very much become Steve Marriott’s baby alone.
I don’t believe that Glenn’s funk and soul leanings deterred Clem as Glenn had been the one to seek him out as a fellow Midlander after all and Glenn has a good nose for guitarists that fit his style, perhaps he wanted a bit more Mel Galley in the band, a guitarist sympathetic to his funk groove (he found that with Tommy Bolin who was much more an enthusiastic rhythm player than sparse Ritchie). Lastly, Humble Pie, especially in their latter days were anything but strangers to funk and soul, incessant US touring and listening to Black Radio left their mark:
https://youtu.be/xvO8h1kZLQs
https://youtu.be/8z9wni2uzR8
https://youtu.be/NAUeuh277Ac
Marriott was as much a Black Music nut as Glenn, if not even more so (though that is hard to fathom).
May 17th, 2025 at 14:15Unfortunately, never met Clem but have played many gigs with his son Joel, who is a superb drummer.
May 17th, 2025 at 16:13If your dad played with Jon Hiseman for most of his professional life, fate leaves you little other choice, RB! “This is how Uncle Jon would do it!” 😂
https://youtu.be/EocPTLFvFPk
And let’s not forget Tempest …
https://youtu.be/cAhs2ts4Vmo
May 18th, 2025 at 11:36Good job mentioning Mick Taylor Uwe! One of my very favorite guitar players. He did a GREAT job with the Stones!!!!
May 18th, 2025 at 15:37No one in his right mind has ever denied that Taylor was the best guitarist in the Stones. Ron Wood gels better with Keith because he emulates his style more, but when it comes to playing a mesmerizing solo Mick T is untouched, the only virtuoso the Stones ever had. Blackmore really rated him highly – and he was anything but a Stones fan (though there would be no All Night Long without the Stones’ Out Of Time).
May 18th, 2025 at 19:35@7 And now there’s a bit of music related comment from me to fully expose my ignorance and embarrass myself. Not a fan of the Stones, either, mostly due to the vibe than music itself. Their vibe is pure evil. I’ll not forget one of my nightmares when I wake up and ‘Gimme Shelter’ is playing in my head…
That all said, I still have been exposed to their music and even more so to the solo work of their members. Truth be told, I quite like solo offerings of Keith and Ron. Based on that, I can opine that their guitar playing is not worse than that of Mick’s, and Ritchie’s, and Clem’s. It is just different. They blur the difference between rhythm and lead and fills playing and use them interchangeably to create rich textures. This approach stems from folk music where small bands would have no clear lead. It is also reflected in the suites of Baroque composers. Those would be nice little works consisting from 3-4 parts each lasting about 1-2 minutes. Each instrumental part would be quite simple but together they would create an intricate vignette.
Now, DP and many other hard and prog rock heroes would make their fans accustomed to a different approach, more 19th century-ish or -esque, where the whole composition structure would be more streamlined to give more prominence to the lead. That approach produced multiple earworms by Beethoven, Tchaikovsky etc. It also brought to fame string and keyboard virtuosos like Paganini and Liszt. That formula worked well again in the 1970s. A guitar (sometimes keyboard) player would riff, then riff again, then do a solo, then riff again. It resulted in the fashion for guitar and keyboard pyrotechnics, textures be damned. Naturally, the partisans of such an approach would pick Mick over Keith or Ron and despise them. Well, even as they would never replicate Mick’s solos and never did, they still deserve better than that.
May 19th, 2025 at 10:17I’ve never seen the Stones as bad musicians, they are exceedingly good at what they do. Keith is a great rhythm player (their Jon Lord), Ron Wood is an all-round-musician that always finds a niche where he can add something to a song, Wyman was totally underrated in his idiosyncratic, contemplative and very free bass playing which wasn’t so much foundational as it “hovered over the music”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fp-YvsVqtbE
and Charlie had real swing – Jagger is as a vocalist rhythmically extremely precise, paces himself well and can write literary lyrics.
A solo guitar highlights go, Mick Taylor was in a class of his own among them, but lead guitar solos aren’t everything.
And yes, like you said, Georgivs, their music meshes and weaves into each other, while Purple’s is more rigidly compartmentalized, the guitar does this, the organ that, the drums provide one thing, the bass the other – Purple is much more “neatly engineered” in construction, no doubt the reason why their status in Germany always outshone Zep’s and Sabbath’s. We’re kindred spirits in that way. Vorsprung durch Technik.
May 19th, 2025 at 16:42@ 8 – excellent comments and really good to see the older world music mentioned and the different takes on it in our ‘modern’ world. I agree and we have been very fortunate to be able to enjoy and learn about it all. I am not a Stones follower at all, they just don’t do anything for me, Jagger is not my take on a lead vocalist at all. Good musicians in the band though. I do understand what you are conveying and we all are or most of us are familiar with some of their older songs. Cheers.
May 19th, 2025 at 23:04@9 Ironically enough, DP could depart from that compartmentalized approach when they wanted to. The other day I was spinning Slaves and Masters to revisit my youth. Other than JLT trying hard to emulate Lou Gramm, the music is quite good and… rich in textures with Ritchie and Jon playing nice little decorative things that they would not do on other albums.
May 20th, 2025 at 07:13Jon Lord’s album Sarabande (2019 remastered) and Uwe it sounds absolutely grand on cd, wonderful and thanks for keeping the faith and insisting that I should own it, well done. Chris Squire’s ‘Fish Out of Water (2018) sounds magnificent, the remix disc. It also has the original stereo mix remastered. A nice booklet, photos etc and the single versions of a couple of songs in a shorter format, plus the forgettable xmas song’ Run with the Fox’ from 1981 that he and Alan White did. I am now going to hassle the local music store for Paice, Ashton and Lord. The recent re-release cd with the added booklet hopefully. All that mid 1970’s music, excellent indeed. Cheers.
May 20th, 2025 at 10:25My pleasure, Tassie!
The PAL remaster sounds great. That album stands as one of the best Martin Birch productions ever.
May 20th, 2025 at 12:59Very good point, Georgivs @11, S&M saw Purple leave the script in more ways than one, that is inter alia the reason why I consider the album a brave move. I can understand why people say that it is “not a real Deep Purple album“, but it is an excellent album featuring DP musicians, that is good enough for me.
Ritchie, I think, at one point grew tired of the “Gorgan” concept that was so idiosyncratically Purple in their early days, that twin lead attack of guitar and keyboards. He would revisit it with Rainbow occasionally, but it never sounded to me like his heart was still in it, it had a “going through the motions”-feel to it.
But to me the guitar/organ interplay of DP is like the twin harmony guitars of Wishbone Ash, it lies at the heart of all things.
May 20th, 2025 at 13:29