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Trapeze in blue
Aficionados of artificial scarcity and vintage formats, rejoice! The first Trapeze self-titled album is being reissued on vinyl apparently for the first time since 1970. Or so it is hyped. Discogs actually says that the album saw vinyl reissues in 1976 (Japan) and in 2019 (New Zealand, of all places). Anyhow, it’s on blue vinyl this time (at least that’s what they call the colour), claimed to be newly remastered, and is limited to 500 copies worldwide. There are no bonus tracks, just the album straight as in the original. Preorder from the label.
Thanks to BraveWords for the heads-up.
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing
Oh yeah, complete with the timeless Heavy Metal Funk Orgy Classic …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PG2Tj0ag1ug
July 31st, 2026 at 00:22And that color isn’t “blue” of course, it‘s petrol! Karin and Beate, please come to my aid, all men either lie
https://youtu.be/m6hzkBihaew
or are colorblind, mostly both.
This place is to fashion and style what the Sahara Desert is to water. 😑
July 31st, 2026 at 00:34I can only say that I own it—though I don’t remember the last time I listened to it, as the sound is too dated—but I won’t be buying it once more, twice (how have to say it?)
July 31st, 2026 at 06:02@ 2
It is petrol… or at least that’s how I see it.
A beautiful colour btw!
Beate what do you think?😊
July 31st, 2026 at 11:47Yep. Petrol. A fascinating colour as is turquoise.
Thogh Send me no more Letters is a very nice and catchy 60s style pop-rock song the album doesn’t do much for me. You are the Music… on the other hand is an all time fave of mine.
July 31st, 2026 at 13:34“Too dated” is darn right, AndreA, the album sounds quaint enough to put Shades of Deep Purple to shame! It’s a real curio and you need to have a love for English pop psychedelia to dig it.
But strange as it is, it’s nice that it hasn’t been forgotton.
I like petrol as a color too. As I do purple (irrespective of my favortie band’s name).
July 31st, 2026 at 14:09“Though Send me no more Letters is a very nice and catchy 60s style pop-rock song …”
Oh Max, if I had only known, du kleiner Schlagerfan! ♥️💞
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEkzRJnLNAo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2h9aREvp80
July 31st, 2026 at 15:19A fascinating colour as is turquoise.
Does your obsession with David Coverdale really know no bounds nor shame, Max? What will Tilly think? 🤣
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTqLWYdeN9P88JMglfzVt0BU_t0h6Ov0BRyDA&s
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQZji8h4407piPRdCg_8LTHd0xjRISHuWfLBPAbYICMndxNH4OeX3pHK_9P&s=10
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTHoPGKLw7pqQQ44GktvtqLT0jEX-d3tmD2q5731fsN0Cc1_B6-OZlXSYQ&s=10
https://i.pinimg.com/736x/42/9e/af/429eaf92cf18e87f2f90c017c350d594.jpg
https://youtu.be/sOx3PApahvM
July 31st, 2026 at 16:12(Except for their – plentiful – diehard fans pretty much everyone hated PUR with a passion, but in reality their only crime was to play – rather skillfully – AOR with German lyrics.)
Interesting that there’s a label out there who’s looked at this album in 2026 and sees money in it.
Broadly speaking, unless you’re a fan of well-crafted 60’s style pop, this really is an album more for completists than anybody else at this point.
That said, it’s not entirely without interest, and its fascinating to see the early flashes of what Trapeze would become as a three piece with Hughes, Galley and Holland alone on the subsequent two albums.
I have this one on vinyl from back in the day, (found it used as I recall), and I have the 1st issue CD from Decca as well. It’s also included in the Purple Records box set that I bought for the live rarities included therein, so that would make three.
I won’t buy it again…
I don’t listen to it often, but I do count “The Giant’s Dead…”, “Nancy Gray”, “Am I?” “Suicide”, and especially “Wings” among the stronger tracks on the album, so there’s always enough there to hold me through on the rare instances that I do put it on…
July 31st, 2026 at 17:36Jürgens Drews…. I didn’t know he did that song, thanks for Schließen einer Bildungslücke, Uwe.
He was in The Les Humphrey Singers once…as another singer who actually has a Purple connection: John Lawton. Little Chalk Blue is a bit schlageresk too…and I love it! Great singer in my book.
David’s 70’s taste in jewellery is right down my lane – much more than the stuff he wore later on.
Tillythemax knows about my tastes and even shares some of them. See DP.
Yours truely
July 31st, 2026 at 18:24Proud owner of a biiig turquoise ring
If I am going to be honest, I show no signs of colorblindness and did not know that petrol is a color. I’ve never seen gasoline that was deep blue-green. What I lack is a colorful vocabulary beyond the 7 in the rainbow. I mean even pink is really just light red.
July 31st, 2026 at 23:13Max, haven’t I been filling all your voids since the day I arrived with my Königstiger on these shores?! Even Free Me by Uriah Heep was schlageresk>/i> – and I think that is a perfect song with great chords!
Yeah, Herr Lawton had pipes no doubt:
https://youtu.be/8Tw36hzJC1c
Who knows how history would have turned out had he accepted that unexpected invitation from Roger Glover to take a flight from Hamburg to London “for a jam session” with Deep Purple who had just received a letter from their current singer that he wasn’t liking his job anymore?
Ritchie could have always given him some hair augmentation advice me thinks? Yet John had a gig with The Les Humphries Singers scheduled and needed the money for his young family. Life is all about priorities, isn’t it.
August 1st, 2026 at 18:04Discogs is crap—just for American and Japanese millionaires who want to buy Uruguayan and Venezuelan Deep Purple LPs at exorbitant prices.
August 2nd, 2026 at 01:04While John Lawton was a very fine singer he never had the wit and writing abilities of Gillan or the attitude and instinct of Coverdale. Not unlike some other wellknown british blues voices he seemed to be just a fine singer and that was it. That’s a lot…but who should have written the songs in DP? If the ones he penned for UH are anything to go by I think there would have been a problem. IG had the melodies and the words, DC can easily write whole songs …and both ooze charisma.
August 2nd, 2026 at 12:41You make it sound like pharaonic artifacts being smuggled out of Egypt at night, Donatien, come on, the Deep Purple guys are not yet THAT old!
https://64.media.tumblr.com/bf87b0666dadf8ec6f9b7f96d7a65728/21441da13f9916e7-34/s540x810/4368bd3579de88e59e14a832b7765eb4e5a9be8b.gif
Hey, I got my rare Belgian The Maze EP via Discogs! 😂
https://youtu.be/ZWemJww9uvo
https://youtu.be/0mpet37WYtI
Eternally grateful for that. Anybody else own it here?
August 2nd, 2026 at 15:16@ 14- John Lawton would not have been heavily involved in the songwriting in UH, Max. Not while Ken Hensley was there. And Ken had changed paths with his songwriting by that time, the main reason I dropped off Uriah Heep big time. As far as David Coverdale being a ‘whole’ songwriter, I doubt that. The better ‘rock’ songs that have involved ole Coverdale would be co-written no doubt. He might have sole written a ballad or two, but seriously Coverdale needed a musician to write with that had the knack for decent song structure, as history has shown. Cheers.
August 2nd, 2026 at 23:16Definitely a point: John (Lawton) was no competition for either IG or DC in the songwriting department, he was indeed just a very good singer and interpreter of other people‘s material. Which basically made him ideal for a band like Uriah Heep where the lion‘s share of songwriting was Hensley‘s.
August 2nd, 2026 at 23:52@16 Well I can only stick to what the credits say as I have not been there….but Lawton has written songs for UH and I don’t think they’re much to write home about.
August 3rd, 2026 at 12:48And Coverdale is the only author of quite some Whitesnake songs and some great solo offerings. He plays guitar and piano and I guess he could even write and record an album all by himself. But of course he always had a hand in getting some talented players to write with.
I actually think it’s the other way around, Herr MacGregor, DC can come up with song structures annd ideas easily, but needs technical more accomplished players to flesh them out.
He can play rudimentary acoustic and electric guitar as well as basic piano. And even a little Hammond organ, the riff of Don’t Break My Heart Again is his and he kept the whole band awake one night rehearsing it and getting it right to then play it to Jon Lord. Likewise he nicked the Still Of The Night riff from an incomplete idea Ritchie once had and taught it years later to John Sykes who ran with it, embellishing it further. That Hendrix style theme/riff of River Song
https://youtu.be/OChN84-U5to ,
originally slated for the Coverdale Page album, but turned down by Page (“Ugh, that is a little too Hendrix-y for me …”), is Coverdales’s as well. Don’t underestimate him as a creative musician.
But whether his instrument skills would be sufficient for a solo album meeting his own exacting standards as far as instrumental performances go, I dunno.
And man, how I wish he would have kept that look and the vocal style he displayed on Into The Light, that might have actually gone somewhere had he persevered. (I never liked his blond look.) Why he didn’t move to Nashville in 2000 to turn into a slightly countrified singer/songwriter with a couple of ideas from pro outside writers is beyond me, I think he had the potential for doing what the guy from Hootie & the Blowfish has successfully done …
BEFORE: https://youtu.be/xoW3bqnr7tw
AFTER: https://youtu.be/hvKyBcCDOB4
August 3rd, 2026 at 15:42@ 18 & 19- yes you both right there, I did have a look online yesterday after I posted my comment thinking just that. Ole (young then) Cov’s initially was a little more ‘solo’ than I thought and I was aware he can strum a few chords etc. I guess the further on it goes with the Snake that is, Bernie Marsden and Micky Moody were involved in some of their better known songs to an extent and of course John Sykes on that ’87 album. In regard to John Lawton, I see he co-wrote a couple of songs on the third UH album, he may have even written a couple himself, although he did co-write with Mick Box that nifty little rocker Free ‘n Easy on the second UH album Innocent Victim. There are a few rock singers that don’t get into writing, especially if there are stronger writers in the band. I don’t think Bernie Shaw does any from what I read a little while ago, he just doesn’t have an interest in it at all apparently. Even when they go ‘solo’ some singers do many covers etc, I always think of Roger Daltrey. Other writers do it for them, to an extent, Leo Sayer and a few others for ole Roger. Cheers.
August 3rd, 2026 at 23:41It’s more or less a tradition with Heep, the lead vocalists don’t really write much. Byron, Lawton and Shaw all didn’t/don’t (or only to a small extent). The only exception was Pete Goalby, who was a passionate songwriter.
Shaw didn’t even write a single song on his solo album a few years ago. Which is ok, don’t force it if it’s not naturally in you.
Byron’s solo career (not that there was much of a “career” to speak of) relied heavily on other people prioviding song material such as Dave Clempson (with Rough Diamond where the keyboarder also wrote) and Robin George.
Brian Connolly wasn’t much of a writer either, the songwriting within Sweet (once they cut the strings to Chinn/Chapman) was very much in the hands of Andy Scott and Steve Priest.
August 4th, 2026 at 10:43Nothing wrong with not writing. Better to let people do it who actually can than come up with mediocre songs like many do. Daltrey, yes…Cocker, Farlowe… and Danny Bowes (to hive him and Thunder another mame check) didn’t write much.
My point was that DP needed singers that can because with the eception of RG in Mark II they didn’t wtite songs complete with lyrics and all. So Lawton would have been a difficult choice.
What I meant concerning DC was…he used to write songs on guitar and piano, even recorded them as a youngster as the bonus tracks from the Solo-boxset show…there is footage of him playing lead guitar, he even did so in one of his first bands I think, (Neal Murray just mentioned on fb a few days ago that DC could play), footage of him drumming…so he might be able to record songs on his own.like Paul Rodgers did for Cut Loose. But of course not to the standards he himsrlf set with people like Paice, Sykes, Marsden, Vai or Lord.
August 4th, 2026 at 14:47It‘s true, the way songs come about in DP, their weird idiosyncratic gestation process, necessitates a very creative singer/lyricist and conversely instrumentalists that can work in the abstract.
Pete Goalby said he couldn‘t work like that at all when he auditioned with Rainbow, and Jon and Little Ian were probably not all too pleased either when JLT confronted them with more or less finished songs in the Slaves & Masters sessions, it was not the way they were used to working.
So I agree, John Lawton would have likely been out of his depth as he had not really contributed much to Lucifer’s Friend‘s songwriting either, especially as their music grew more complex with Banquet.
August 4th, 2026 at 18:22Back to Glenn, sort of … Anybody remember the Latino guitarist he had with him on the First Underground Nuclear Kitchen/F.U.N.K. Tour, Luis Carlos Maldonado, some 18 years ago (he was also featured on Glenn’s album of the same name)? I remember him making quite an impression on me back then. I thought this guy is something else.
https://www.glennhughes.com/images/tourpix/2008/tallinn_110108-3.jpg
Meanwhile, the Mexican kid and LA resident is all grown up and made a name for himself first as Foreigner’s second guitarist in 2021 and now – since last year – as their surprise new lead singer, and what a singer he is:
https://youtu.be/FPuPrA9TRHg
(Modern day) Foreigner doing a Simon & Garfunkel classic with Glenn’s ex-guitarist on vocals and Dokken’s Jeff Pilson (who’s been with Foreigner for ages now) on bass? There are strange things a-happening every day …
August 6th, 2026 at 12:36Oh, so Glenn’s site doesn’t like sharing pics! 🤣
No matter, let’s try this, Glenn and Luis live in 2008, albeit in reversed roles with Glenn channeling his inner Mel Galley and Luis playing Glenn’s bass …
https://youtu.be/-1SfTgM2Cps?is=MrJjscLEZe0ywd_2
August 6th, 2026 at 23:56That’s the way you do it, here the generational Foreigner Family performs with singer #2 (Kelly) bringing singer #1 (Lou) on stage and passing the baton to singer #3 (Luis):
https://youtu.be/pqoHNdnYVa8
August 7th, 2026 at 02:02@25
“Glenn’s site doesn’t like sharing pics! ”
It’s to prevent hotlinking. Often times websites will take measures to ensure that prevent the content (most often images) of their websites being viewed outside of that specific website. It’s meant to prevent others from using their server space and bandwidth. I have taken measures to prevent that on my website as well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=huBWPHHCD6M
August 7th, 2026 at 08:47@25 Now that was interesting, Uwe. Didn’t know GH played lead guitar on stage. Have only seen him doing acoustic.
August 7th, 2026 at 13:42Oh, Glenn was a guitarist initially and only switched to bass to play with his then idol Mel Galley whom he considered the stronger guitarist. And at the time DP poached him from Trapeze, it was actually planned that he would revert to second guitar in Trapeze too, leaving the bass work to a new bassist, Pete MacKie, turning the trio into a quartet.
There were even already promo pictures of the new look Trapeze:
https://media.gettyimages.com/id/179605516/photo/mel-galley-dave-holland-pete-mackie-and-glenn-hughes-from-english-rock-group-trapeze-posed-in.jpg?s=612×612&w=gi&k=20&c=hLtGruz1285CSPCipjmFqXMl2admymU5gBhogsnf-xM=
https://media.gettyimages.com/id/179605515/photo/trapeze-in-london.jpg?s=594×594&w=gi&k=20&c=UN0qvPVto-XCw0VdS1eJomURdPYIg_rJtZofRIyTzgY=
It is unclear whether that line-up ever really hit the stage. There is talk of a UK gig of the quartet on 31 March in 1973, right around the time Glenn was secretly signing up with Purple. But apparently Mel Galley was adamant in later interviews that the four-piece-version of Trapeze never played live. They likely rehearsed though, but Glenn was by that time with his mind already somewhere else. Mel Galley has mentioned that he found it somewhat disconcerting when Glenn all of the sudden began noodling DP riffs backstage at Trapeze gigs when he felt not watched! 😂
Of course, once Glenn was out, the remaining Trapeze did morph into a quartet for real with extra-guitarist Rob Kendrick and bassist Pete Wright (who was similarly funky as Glenn had been and a very good player too). With the two-pronged guitar attack, The new Trapeze sounded quite a bit more “US stadium rock” than in the trio days, there was a bit of “Foghat-ization” going on:
https://youtu.be/AekyCxYUMEI
And yes, that “Lil’ Band from Texas” did give that song a very close listen for their men’s attire-related hit:
https://youtu.be/7wRHBLwpASw
I’ve heard that Beate regards the song’s lyrical theme as shallow. 😝
August 7th, 2026 at 23:34Another prominent bass guitarist that began playing six string guitar. Are there any bass guitarists that have not started out as a guitarist. It does raise the question of the bass being an instrument that many don’t seem to be drawn to at first. Is it that bad an instrument? Is there some sort of stigma attached to the poor old four string. The poor things (the players I am referring to), I suppose it is better than nothing at all. Or it could be worse, they could have been a drummer. Which is the easier instrument to begin with, apart from a harmonica or tin whistle or even a tambourine. Should we feel sorry for bass guitarists? Cheers.
August 8th, 2026 at 06:59Seriously, I think it has to do with it taking some time to learn and tune your ears to picking out the bass in a song. Most casual music listeners don’t really get what the bass does. It’s easy to latch onto a voice, a guitar solo or a drum break, but bass isn’t such an obvious attention getter.
I have of course meanwhile been habitually deformed and concentrate on what the bass does ALL THE TIME! 🤣
August 8th, 2026 at 15:54I always loved the bass guitar. The George Baker Selection and THAT song Little Green Bag, just to name one song. A wonderful song, it has everything. Drumming wise most probably Wipeout from the Surfaris. The sort of songs or instrumentals that made you think about wanting to play a musical instrument, at a rather young age. Plus also sitting behind a drum kit at that age, picking up the sticks, rata tat tat, boom boom etc. Probably sounding like Bonzo even back then and not realising it, he he he. Ian Paice more likely or both of them. Who’s counting. Cheers.
Little Green Bag, 1970.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sobvrbX-_tM&list=RDsobvrbX-_tM&start_radio=1
August 9th, 2026 at 09:21If truth be told, I never recognized what a bass did until I heard these two songs as a kid
https://youtu.be/9Qp_SrTgBBs
and young teenager
https://youtu.be/Kdqqe1cgtv4
That bass intro of the Dr Hook song really made me perk my ears though at the time I still thought it was tuned drums! 😂
August 9th, 2026 at 20:31Dr Hook and rock’ n roll. It was singles only for me when so young. 20 Explosive hits, those collections came out every six months or so out here. My father brought them home from the record store and we would tape them to cassette, then he returned them, he he he. We also did that when albums became the in thing a few years later. I would have heard Deep Purple as Black Night was on one of those ‘hit singles’ collections, and earlier probably with Hush too. I didn’t know who DP were of course, as in band members, history, albums etc. My older cousin had the albums and a stereo system and he said to me, ‘play anything you want’. That was manna at that time, a euphoric moment indeed. Wearing headphones of course, our parents (mum especially) and his parents didn’t need to hear that music all over again. Here we are half a century later still going on about it all, life eh? That old school Nancy Sinatra song, all those songs on the television and many from my father’s collection and an introduction there to so many older classics and also the musical instruments. Cheers.
August 9th, 2026 at 23:25