The Music Legends magazine has put out in September a Deep Purple special. The writeup would probably be nothing new to any THS regular, and it’s riddled with wrong dates (California Jam ostensibly took place in 1971, and Gillan was arguing with Blackmore on their US tour of 1974). It is also far from coherent history of the band as it jumps from the departure of Chris Curtis straight to the demise of Mark II. Of a mild interest can be the pictures — particularly, that bongo player the band recruited, as displayed on page 8.

Check it out online, if you wish, but don’t spend your money on it.

Thanks to Yvonne for the info.

Trouser Press was a music magazine published in New York during the late 70s to early 80s. Their entire magazine archive is now available online, and issue 30 from July 1978 has a very interesting interview with Ritchie Blackmore. Where, for once, he is serious for the most part, and provides his thoughts at the time on the contemporary music business, his peers (from Beatles to Fleetwood Mac, spoiler: he’s not fond of either), the creative process in Deep Purple and reasons for leaving the band and forming Rainbow. He is also highly critical of his songwriting, citing that he thinks his improvisational abilities are superb, and he can write riffs, but not very good at “putting a song together”.

Read the interview in Trouser Press #30, pp. 28-30. Bonus: there’s an ad for Long Live Rock’n’Roll on page 13.

Other Purple family mentions in the magazine include:

• Issue 21, page 22: a feature called Heavy Metal: Down but not out and subtitled A survey of survivors gives an overview of Purple spin-off bands as of 1977: IGB, P/A/L, Rainbow, and DC solo effort.
• Issue 34, page 21: Blackmore gets a mention of the list of best 100 guitarists;
• ibid., page 48: a scathing review of the brainchild of record company accounting department — When we rock, we rock, and when we roll, we roll Purple compilation.
• Issue 29, page 46: a short and not terribly favourable review of the just released Long Live Rock’n’Roll.
• Issue 43, page 43: also not terribly favourable review of Down to Earth.
• Issue 63, page 37: mostly favourable (for a change) review of Difficult to Cure.
• Issue 33, page 9: a brief review of a Rainbow gig in New York City, during which the guitar player walked off the stage 20 minutes into the set; refunds were offered.
• Issue 40, page 2: a short note on post-LLRnR Rainbow lineup changes.

Glenn Hughes and The Dead Daisies have released an animated video for Bustle and Flow — a track from their upcoming album Holy Ground. Continue Reading »

David Coverdale spoke to WFPK radio which broadcasts out of Louisville, Kentucky. They talked about about Red, White and Blue trilogy of Whitesnake compilations, the state of his health (DC had his hernia surgery recently), the ongoing pandemic, and many other things.
Continue Reading »

An interview with Roger Glover is the cover feature of September edition of the Bass Player magazine. They talked about the pandemic, the new album, Bob Ezrin, bass gadgets and widgets, the dynamics inside the band, Jon Lord, and many other things.

Presumably there won’t be any Long Goodbye tour dates in 2020, then? “No, this year’s gone. All the touring we were going to do this summer is going to be shifted to the summer of 2021. I don’t know dates yet, but I don’t think there’s anything until then, unless we get together and have a bit of fun.” Deep Purple—Glover plus singer Ian Gillan, guitarist Steve Morse, organist Don Airey, and drummer (and sole remaining Mark I member) Ian Paice—are a widely distributed band, making online sessions an obvious option in lockdown. However, an all-Purps Zoom jam isn’t on the cards, says Glover. “We’re five individuals stretched out around the world, and it’s difficult to co-ordinate,” he explains. “I wanted to do an online jam session, or something like that, but that was voted down because of latency or some other issue. Paicey’s doing a thing on Youtube called Drumtribe, though, which is interesting—it’s an insight into how we work.”

Have a look—it’s an insight into Purple at work in the studio, not a common sight by any means. “I remember in the old days the management or record company weren’t allowed in the studio when we were making music,” says Glover. “There was a dividing line between business and music. We did the music, they did the business. That’s pretty much the way it’s been. We’re not secretive in the studio, exactly, but we don’t invite people in for a party, either. Paicey had cameras all over the place, for what reason we didn’t know at the time, so what you see of us in the recording, doing the actual takes, is new.”

Read more in Bass Player.

Thanks to Yvonne for the heads up.

Roger Glover was the featured guest on BBC’s Rock Show With Johnnie Walker this Saturday, September 19. He appeared on the show’s Rock God segment. Roger nomination for the deity was not one of his bandmates, but Gary Moore:

When we had the reunion in 1984 — Deep Purple, that is — Paicey came in — he’d been with the Gary Moore band for a couple of years, or several years — and he said, ‘Gary Moore’s gonna be huge one day. He’s brilliant.’ And I’d never thought about it. I was aware of him, of course, in Thin Lizzy and stuff, but I never thought about it much until he moved to America where I was living at the time. Not only moved to America, but he moved one road away from me. I had a little studio there in my house, and I helped him do a demo, ‘Cold Day In Hell’. After about a year, he decided to move back to England, but he had nowhere to stay for the last night, so he and his family stayed in my house. He came down to the studio and he said, ‘What are you up to?’ So I was playing him a song — a very simple chord sequence, with just drums and bass — and he said, ‘Oh, would you like some guitar on it?’ I said, ‘Well, yeah.’ And the next day, about an hour before the limo came to take him to the airport, he reminded me, he said, ‘Oh, did you want some guitar on that song?’ I said, ‘Oh, yeah. Okay.’ He played three versions — three takes, I should say — of the song without having heard it before — it was just a chord sequence to him — and somehow he plucked a beautiful melody. I sat there and listened to what he had done, and I was just blown away with the power of his fingers. I picked up a guitar and tried to bend the notes like he had, and there was no way I could do it. And he does it with such pitch control and such feeling. I mean, I had a whole new respect for Gary.

Since that day, which is a long time ago now, it’s rested on my computer, and I will be releasing it one day. One day, I will release an album of studio bits and pieces and demos that I did, and it’ll be included on that. We worked together since then a few times, and he was just an absolute force of nature when it came to playing the guitar. Very underrated. And I’d love to have worked more with him.

The show can be replayed for one month after the airdate on the BBC website. The segment in question starts at around 27’50” (and nice of them to open it with Nothing at all).

…Or, alternatively:

Thanks to Blabbermouth for the info and transcript, and to Yvonne for the youtube link.

Six String Salute was a virtual concert held on September 17 to support all the crew members who found themselves out of their jobs due to the pandemic. One of the numbers featured there was a “progressive arrangement” of Stormbringer done by Joel Hoekstra on guitar, Dino Jelusić (Animal Drive, Trans-Siberian Orchestra) on vocals, Virgil Donati (a card-carrying member of the Ian Paice Appreciation Society) on the drums, and Tony Franklin (who played with everybody and their dogs) on bass. Here it is, with a beatific smile from Mr. Hoekstra: Continue Reading »

David Stone talks to the Metal Express Radio about his current projects, his career, and of course, his stint with Rainbow:

Not long after the [Symphonic Slam] album was released you had joined Rainbow. How did you get the call to join Rainbow?

I was still signed to A&M Records and was still involved with Symphonic Slam. That album had only been out a few months and it was only just rolling. I was getting a lot of session work in Toronto because of Symphonic Slam. I got offers to work with Gino Vannelli and lots of other people and I was doing a lot of demo work too. I was at home and I got a call from the studio where I was doing a lot of work at the time from Bob Segarini, who had a hit called Goodbye LA and he called me to tell me that the manager for Ritchie Blackmore was trying to get a hold of me. He told me that there was a first-class ticket waiting for me at the studio to fly out to LA. I flew out the next day and got picked up in the evening by Colin Hart, Rainbow’s manager. He took me up to Hollywood Hills and I get out to one of those million-dollar places and there in the kitchen is Ritchie Blackmore, Cozy Powell and Ronnie James Dio and here I am, this 24-year-old kid from Toronto, shitting large bricks. I was the youngest in the band by about 10 years.

Blackmore was known to improvise a lot on stage. How was it playing a live show with him?

It was ridiculous, he was absolutely ridiculous. Back then we played insanely loud on stage. We had so much equipment that ran eight feet high right across the stage. All of the road crew could go back and forth behind our equipment without being seen. Ritchie would send his roadie right across the back of the stage to my roadie who’d then come to me when the lights were off me, to say that Ritchie wanted me to take a 10-minute solo at the end of the song. That’s all the notice I’d get. I didn’t even know what theme I should adopt. Was I doing an intro to a ballad, should I end up in a certain key? Nothing, no clues whatsoever. I did get used to it quite quickly though as I expected it after the first couple of shows.

Read more on Metal Express Radio.

Thanks to Jim Collins for the info.

A German band called Baroque in Blue lists Jon Lord Tribute among their projects. Their repertoire consists of Purple staples with some Whitesnake and rarities from Jon’s solo output thrown in.

The Jon Lord Tribute Project are:

Hans Peter Herkenhöhner – Hammond B3, keyboards
Karen Fälker-Herkenhöhner – flute
Holger Strässer – guitar
Wendel Biskup – bass
Uli Poth – drums

Thanks to andreas leutgeb for the info.

Some time earlier this month Ian Gillan was a guest on his local Lyme Bay Radio discussing all things from cricket to cosmology (don’t trust his expertise on the latter too much though). The hour long chat can be replayed via the radio station’s facebook account.

Thanks to Yvonne for the info.