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Smelled like Gypsy Rose
Here is a bit of boogaloo. Big Ian channels his inner Elvis in this (mostly) acoustic performance, supported by Roger and Steve.
Audio of this performance also appears on a bootleg called The Biggest Bee So Far Vol 3, where the recording is credited to Museum of TV and Radio in New York City, for Rockline Radio, airdate: May 3, 2000.
Thanks to Musixita for the clip, to Uwe Hornung for bringing it to your attention, and to Tim Summers for the identification.
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing
Now that I have finally fooled Nick 🙈, it‘s time to ‘fess up:
I created this with my secret AI lab
https://media3.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPTZjMDliOTUyMnZwMGVzOW80OXM1ZGhoa3R6MW1vZ2cycWhwZnhkZDlkaXg1YmJmMCZlcD12MV9naWZzX3NlYXJjaCZjdD1n/3o752ogcifnC3MECt2/200w.gif
in the damp catacombs of one of my German castles (the one I reside in during the summer months, I rent the other one out to Ritchie and Candice). It wasn‘t particularly difficult, all I had to do is enter certain keywords as my whim would strike me:
– “Karin”,
– “most famous rock star in 🇩🇰 in the 80s (according to some sources at least)”,
– “butter-tenor karaoke”,
– “Beate”,
– “widowed Floridian hay farmer”,
– “muscle shirt”,
and – voilà! – this is what the machinery spat out!
Didn’t turn out too badly, did it? 🤗
August 3rd, 2026 at 05:00Country blues, no wonder Gillan lost interest in Steve Morse being in DP, ouch! Seriously, don’t give up the day job Ian, he he he. Unplugged, well almost until Steve ruined everything, not to mention the bass guitarist. We wonder what any Elvis fans here are thinking? Especially from ‘up north’ Cheers.
August 3rd, 2026 at 05:43I could imagine big Ian doing a little solo show with his geeetar, performing songs from throughout his career and a few favourites that inspired him. Karin buys a ticket, goes to the show, sits in the front row. Ian walks out and says to the audience, “tonight I am going to change things around a little. I will be performing only Elvis songs tonight, hope you don’t mind”. ……………..
August 3rd, 2026 at 06:08@1- ha ha ha, well done Uwe. I was also thinking along the lines of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Or even good ole Frankenstein. Cheers.
August 3rd, 2026 at 09:41This is nice video –super…more more….I wish they had recorded an acoustic album like this..rather than “Turning to Crime”…live acustic album , which cover and their wonderful songs for acoustics like (Loosen My Strings,”The Aviator,”Don’t Make Me Happy,” “Walk On,” “Never a Word,” “Clearly Quite Absurd,” “Before Time Began,” “All the Time in the World,” “Nothing at All,”…or “Smoke on the Water” in a jazz way..maybe they would disappoint some conservative hard7heavy rockers but win over many other..fans of good music. Well, in 1965 Dylan became an electrician …..at the Newport Folk Festival, 25. 07, one of the crucial in the history of the rock genre
Big Ian a multi-dimensional singer, as well as Steve Morse the guitarist, there is a lot of talent here
August 3rd, 2026 at 10:24The full set is: Woman From Tokyo, Smoke On The Water, Worried Man (brief excerpt of a Lonnie Donegan song), Ted The Mechanic, Knocking At Your Back Door and You’re Gonna Ruin Me Baby.
The full track of Ruin Me Baby is over two and a half minutes and features a rather tasty electric guitar solo from Steve. If you go over to the Highway Star forum and look at “List of pro shot Deep Purple videos with Steve” you’ll find a link to the complete bootleg.
August 3rd, 2026 at 12:30Got the recording back then and I alwaxs liked that Gypsy Rose thing a lot.
August 3rd, 2026 at 12:39I would like to say a few words of defense on the artists idolized by Karin and Beate:
– To my utter surprise (I last saw him playing an electric guitar live with GILLAN 45 years ago), Ian seems to be a better acoustic guitar player than DC, you can tell especially by his supple right hand strumming where he immediately builds up a nice swinging groove (sounds easier to do than it is). As for the vocals, this might turn Karin into a Rumpelstilzchen of sorts tearing herself apart, but Ian’s voice was made for Elvis-type Country Blues like that. Much more credible than No More Cane On The Brazos or Living For The City for which Ian simply isn’t black enough. There I said it. He is neither DC nor GH in that respect.
– Speaking of Country Blues, Bluegrass etc, if there is something that Steve does with incredible ease and natural feel, then it is this kind of music. I think his fills slot immediately right in with what Ian plays. And that is not just a “learned” thing with Steve (we all know he can pretty much play anything), this is actually him from deep down.
Too bad the clip is so short, I could have continued listening to this for a while.
August 3rd, 2026 at 15:03This is great …I think it was from South Africa in 1995 …just before the release of Purpendicular ?
I’ve got a video copy somewhere..
Anyway , I.G seems to like that song …here he is doing it with Grace ( apologies if anyone has seen it )
https://youtu.be/vYI3TrTsOaw?si=HF1rjg3Q8C9f3I_Q
August 3rd, 2026 at 17:46#5 Ivica:
I’ve always dreamed of a Purple unplugged album too.
August 3rd, 2026 at 20:02Until the mid-90s it was a trend that was in heavy rotation on MTV, the most diverse artists did it, even metal ones like Queensryche and for Purple it would have been an opportunity not to be missed!
Great recording but strange video size.
August 3rd, 2026 at 20:10Wasn’t South Africa without Ian because he had a bad throat?
Grace sounds “blacker” than her dad in that clip, was he home a lot?
😑
The secrets that wimmin – wisely – keep.
https://youtu.be/IUdjKf2QBg8
(In the mid 70s there was nothing more unsettling than Les Grey’s smile! 😂)
August 3rd, 2026 at 20:28@9. No. The South Africa radio broadcast is different. This was a US radio broadcast.
August 4th, 2026 at 05:13Isn’t the beginning of this video the full acoustic set?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptO-wWt136U
Found in our Forums, you know! 🙂
August 4th, 2026 at 06:37@14. Yes.
August 4th, 2026 at 09:56@1
SIGH……
What am I supposed to be doing with you Uwe!?
YES (for the 117th time…) Gillan was a very popular band in Denmark, at least in my neighbourhood 😊
So is Deep Purple 😃
August 4th, 2026 at 16:42@3
“I will be performing only Elvis songs tonight, hope you don’t mind”
August 4th, 2026 at 16:46– MacGregor, tell you this:
Ian Gillan is so far away from Elvis as east is from west… at least in my weird brain.
So if the great singer will sing, playing his guitar, I promise you: he could sing from an old newspaper, and I would still be in awe 😃
@10
“Until the mid-90s it was a trend that was in heavy rotation on MTV, the most diverse artists did it, even metal ones like Queensryche…”
And for the most part the performances were, at best, lackluster. Kiss unplugged??? C’mon, who wants to hear that. The only good thing to come out of the “unplugged” craze were the albums Isle of View by The Pretenders & Golden Earring’s The Naked Truth.
August 5th, 2026 at 06:37#18 Russ:
I’ve never heard Kiss Unplugged, you’re probably right, but it was certainly a trend that was a big advertising showcase.
August 5th, 2026 at 08:44I always suffered from not having an unplugged Purple album and I consoled myself with Starkers in Tokyo by WS
Well KISS unplugged… I tend to find their music a bit boring even plugged in…but it can be good fun. I guess the songs do not scream for unplugged renditions. You cannot compare them to DP’s work, let alone the quality of the musicians. JL and RB as SM excelled on acoustic instruments, singers like IG, DC, GH and, yes, JLT can carry a tune no matter the background … Some examples that prove that are available some of them only on YT though. JLT for example sounds much better with an acoustic guitar to me than in an AOR picture. DC released some fine stark stuff and funny enough it was more the guitar playing that left to be desired cos his axemen did not feel too comfortable with the acoustic guitars …RB’s playing on some BN songs is divine (not talking of the songs, just his playing…) and LJ was no slouch on piano either.
August 5th, 2026 at 09:16@18
August 5th, 2026 at 10:22Well, Deep Purple is not just a Heavy/Hard rock band, at least for me there is a lot of breadth in their music. It’s not exactly the best comparison to Kiss and Queensryche.. with DP. I find the comparison of DP with Led Zeppelin much closer, specifically the Page/Plant album No Quarter: Jimmy Page and Robert Plant Unledded, In addition to acoustic songs, the album contains reworkings of Led Zeppelin classics, songs with Middle Eastern and Moroccan influences, their mix was excellent.Why could DP do something like that ?
In defense of Kiss Unplugged, that is probably one of the least doctored Kiss live recordings ever and actually showed the band stretching out – or have you ever heard Gene Simmons in full regalia in a stadium sounding like this and giving his inner Fab Four (he’s a Beatles buff) a treat?
https://youtu.be/YBO5uKqfm5g
Unplugged is also Edith’s favorite Kiss album, whenever I play it, she invariably says: I didn’t know they can actually play music!”
*************************************
I think DP were always acoustic-set-averse because the two main instrumentalists were:
– Ritchie shunned acoustic work almost completely throughout the 70s: There is not a single acoustic guitar note from the Concerto up to and including Burn (meaning during all of Mk II’s first existence), and even Stormbringer and the Rainbow debut feature just one solitary acoustic track each (Soldier and Temple). It wasn’t until the latish 90s that Richard fell off his horse due to probably an electric shock from his Marshall amp somewhere near Damascus and turned from electric Saul to acoustic Paul. (Or maybe Candy just likes acoustic guitars better, never underestimate the influence of wimmen!)
– Jon, much as he had his classical side with piano, saw himself in the rock sphere as a Hammond organist first and foremost. And you simply can’t play a Hammond unplugged. Replacing it with a piano just doesn’t work, they are two different instruments with different roles. Jon never much liked to play piano live with DP and DP’s trademark sound was to a huge part the might of his Hammond. When he played piano with Purple where he usually played organ, the effect was drastic: I saw and heard it in Mannheim 1985 when his Hammond gave up the ghost and he had to make do with playing piano for a few numbers. It was interesting to hear, but DP all of the sudden sounded like the Elton John Band doing a faster track like Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting with Ritchie guesting! 😂
I think it is also telling that Jon ‘skipped’ something like the NY acoustic session that is the subject of this thread, he apparently wasn’t comfortable with that setting at all me thinks.
*************
Finally: At all times, acoustic guitars were a vital part of Led Zep’s sonic palette (and not just on the dedicated acoustic numbers either), while they played almost no role with Purple once Mk I was history. Hell, Ritchie couldn’t even bring himself to play acoustic on Rainbow Eyes, a song that really clamored for use of an acoustic, never mind that Ritchie going against the grain by employing his Strat created something beautiful all the same.
August 5th, 2026 at 15:41Robin Trower never records or plays live with an acoustic guitar. At least not to my knowledge. He has an old Martin that he dabbles with for a few ideas occasionally at home, from interviews I have read. Rory Gallagher embraced the acoustic guitar, wonderful that was, a dobro too of course, plus harmonica. That is the blues for you, Stella he was. If anyone isn’t into bluegrass, folk, flamenco, classical and country, enough said there. Ritchie probably could have delved into an acoustic a little more, same with Jon Lord, but that is a difficult one for the keyboards. As we know, that hard rock stance from a few of the lads back then, old habits, die hard. Look at ELP, Greg Lake played an acoustic, but ole Keith still had to use an electric Moog or something to accompany, excepting the odd piano cameo of course, but that was usually a solo piece of sorts. Blame it on ‘heavy metal’ I suppose. Why not? Cheers.
August 5th, 2026 at 23:03@19
“but it was certainly a trend that was a big advertising showcase.”
That’s pretty much the way I saw it… It was more about money than it was about music.
@20
“JLT for example sounds much better with an acoustic guitar to me than in an AOR picture.”
Very much so… I’ve got a boot of his performance with the New Japan Philharmonic that I play quite often.
@21
“Well, Deep Purple is not just a Heavy/Hard rock band, at least for me there is a lot of breadth in their music”
Yes, Much more than a lot of their peers. They make music that is truly one of a kind.
“I find the comparison of DP with Led Zeppelin much closer, specifically the Page/Plant album No Quarter: Jimmy Page and Robert Plant Unledded…”
After following the link that Svante posted I thought about what DP songs would be good candidates for an acoustic treatment and to my surprise came up with over 2 dozen.
@22
“Unplugged is also Edith’s favorite Kiss album”
I wonder who the other female Kiss fan is? Still, that’s two more than Rush has.
@23
“Rory Gallagher embraced the acoustic guitar, wonderful that was, a dobro too of course, plus harmonica. That is the blues for you, Stella he was. If anyone isn’t into bluegrass, folk, flamenco, classical and country, enough said there.”
Yes, an appreciation for other types of music makes for a well-rounded person. I’ve found that the average DP fan has much broader musical tastes than the average person.
August 7th, 2026 at 08:15I bought a „best of“ Rory Gallagher some time ago, there are many „unplugged“ pieces, I love listen to Rory since a crush back in the 70ies introduced me to this wonderful guitarist! He is so versatile and not „only“ a bluesguitarist.
And please don’t forget Steve‘s wonderful acoustic sets with The Guitar Trio and the Steve Morse Band back then. I would like an acoustic album!!
August 7th, 2026 at 17:39I have no interest in a Deep Purple acoustic album or an unplugged show. Although I wouldn’t mind hearing Rodrigo y Gabriella do a Deep Purple song.
August 8th, 2026 at 01:09Guys, in case you didn’t notice, Beate just switched sides from muscle to Flannel shirts …
https://i.scdn.co/image/ab6761610000e5ebe21794f3b8bc495ce47ca3ac
No doubt a male fashion improvement of sorts! 😃
Rory was a great musician. He was bad in taking even well-meant and good advice like releasing these two songs as singles, which he flat-out refused.
https://youtu.be/AVHVgczS9-w
https://youtu.be/wtJq8T_Q3mI
August 8th, 2026 at 05:33Phew …that was close ….
….we nearly had a thread there that Uwe didn’t have the last word on !
August 8th, 2026 at 13:09May I confess remembering fine unplugged shows from Bjork and George Michael?
August 8th, 2026 at 17:12Rory did what he wanted to do, like many musicians. He was never interested in fame or a hit etc. Very much a bohemian individual. Gone far too early, such a shame. I missed seeing him in Australia in the early 90’s due to cursed work commitments. Regarding Steve in this ‘unplugged’ scene, disappointing to see him with the electric, when he does have an acoustic. Or he could easily get hold of another one. Cheers.
August 8th, 2026 at 22:29Nothing to confess, RV, George Michael was one hell of a singer. Plus he was a Def Leppard fan and loved especially this song here:
https://youtu.be/1F_1JTvG_Eg
Good taste the man.
And Bjork is a one-of-a-kind artist.
August 10th, 2026 at 16:15