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Spirit of the cow in a dungeon
Glenn Hughes recently made an appearance on the Mick Wall’s podcast (season 5, episode 9). It’s over an hour long, with lots and lots of dirt being turned over and war stories told, good half of it Purple-related one way or the other. We highly recommend finding the time to listen to the whole thing through.
Thanks to Anton Glaving for the heads-up.
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing
We previously discussed the need for a strong co-writer in order for Glenn to fully blossom, yet he managed to produce and write, on his own and at the age of 24, one of the most artistic albums in the whole DP family catalogue: Play Me Out. Talk about peaking early 🙂 But there was more good stuff to follow.
November 1st, 2025 at 12:54LOL, Daniel, I admire your guts, advocating “Play Me Out” of all releases, a once planned Trapeze album that morphed into Glenn’s solo debut, here! 🤣 Along with Jon Lord’s Windows and IGB’s CAT that album stands as the most divisive Purple Family product ever. PMO went straight over people’s heads at the time, it pretty much baffled anyone who bought it (and especially those who knew Glenn from DP, not that anybody was interested in that particular album who didn’t know him from DP). I remember playing parts (no one except me ever wanted to hear it all the way through 😂) of the album to people (both DP fans and disability-free people 😎) and their reaction was not so much dislike (you need some kind of comprehension, however basic, to dislike something), but genuine and slightly bemused puzzlement. If there was ever a commercial suicide, this was it, it is to Glenn‘s oeuvre what Metal Machine Music was to Lou Reed‘s.
Yet I‘m totally with you, I think it‘s an excellent work though admittedly it took me years to get into it. But then these days I even like Windows! 😎
It must have sold horribly, except for the great “Your Love Is Like A Fire” (one of the more accessible songs on the album)
https://youtu.be/APNzr6ZKd5E
which he played occasionally in the 90s
https://youtu.be/LNd9fE7nuE4
and songs like LA Cutoff and Space High which he presented with Trapeze on their – thanks to his raging coke addiction – prematurely curtailed 1976 tour he never plays anything from the album live. Which is pity as I would really like to hear it performed once live front to back. And with you, Daniel, me and maybe Max we’d already have three tickets sold! 😂
Re the interview, it’s a very illuminating one. GH’s impersonations of DC (“the most pompous man on earth, yet I love him”) are hilarious. Glenn haters will be consoled by the fact that while he repeats that Mk II’s music and especially Ian Gillan’s voice didn’t do much for him (fair enough), he also clarifies that the Madison Square Garden performance of DP he could witness from the side of the stage at the invite of Jon Lord was a great one even at such a late stage of Mk II’s lifespan. Likely, at that point Roger didn’t yet know who Glenn was (Trapeze weren’t a household name in the UK and their faces not regularly shown in music papers) or, if he did, was beyond the point of giving a damn.
November 2nd, 2025 at 14:29Yes, count me in Uwe and Daniel! I like Play me out a big deal and own both cd versions (the bonus tracks differ) and the vinyl from 1976.
Btw: Glenn did play (and record and release) I found a Woman live.
November 2nd, 2025 at 20:46I remember that now, you’re right, Max!
November 3rd, 2025 at 22:44Make that 4 seats sold, love that album, but then i love Stormbringer, so maybe don’t trust my judgement..
November 7th, 2025 at 18:49Stormbringer is an album that over the decades has advanced from a mid tier position in my personal taste list to just below my all time favorites Machine Head, Burn and CTTB. I like the album’s versatility which it shares with WDWTWA and Purpendicular. It also has that decadent “We’re Deep Purple, we can do anything!”-air about it that only slightly jaded rock stars in the mid 70s could muster – wonderful!
If Stormbringer had been turned into a double album with extra songs based on the musical ideas that would not much later blossom into You Keep On Moving, Man On The Silver Mountain, Catch The Rainbow, Temple of the King, 16th Century Greensleeves and Coverdale’s Blind Man, it would have been DP’s Physical Graffiti.
I often like Ritchie best when he is in unusual musical surroundings and slightly out of his comfort zone, I would have loved to have heard him jam with Bob Marley & the Wailers! He would have come up with something, he has good ears.
November 8th, 2025 at 15:15