Hot on the heels of The Cozy Powell Story, there is another book coming from the same author: Tommy Bolin – In and Out of Deep Purple.

It started off so well. As Jon Lord enthused in the October 1975 issue of Melody Maker: ‘Tommy can’t be so bad for us with so many good ideas. All I can say is when you hear the album (Come Taste The Band) you’ll change your mind. Whether you like the music or not, you’ll have to realise that Deep Purple now have an excitement in their playing that they haven’t had in a long time…’

Despite calls of ‘we want Blackmore’ when Deep Purple Mark four played live, there was so much more to American guitarist Tommy Bolin than being Ritchie Blackmore’s replacement. As a result, the purpose of this long-overdue biography is to readdress the existing narrative of Tommy Bolin’s legacy. As well as discussing objectively Tommy’s time with Deep Purple, Laura Shenton offers an insight into his musical achievements in his own right outside of the band, which include two cult rock albums in Teaser and Private Eyes. He also had a stint in The James Gang and made numerous guest appearances, where his versatile and virtuosic skills as a guitarist were utilised, before his untimely death in 1976 at the shockingly young age of 25

What: Tommy Bolin – In and Out of Deep Purple by Laura Shenton
When: March 26 May 28, 2020
Where: Sonicbond Publishing, UK
ISBN: 978-1789520705
Price: £12.99
Format: Paperback, 128 pages, 16 colour pages

The book can be preordered from all good bookstores, for example, this one.

Thanks to Yvonne for the info.

One of the cheapest and easiest ways to protect yourself from the coronavirus is to wash your hands with soap, do it often, and do it thoroughly. Thoroughly means rubbing every nook and cranny of your hands for at least 20 seconds. A good way to measure the time is to sing a verse of your favourite song. Not necessarily out loud.

Or head to Wash Your Lyrics and create your own. You are welcome.

Caveat: the site is pretty busy at the moment (as one can imagine), so it may take a few tries to get it working.

At the yesterday (March 14) show in Mexico, Deep Purple performed with Jordan Rudess on the keyboards. Don Airey could not make it to the gig “for reasons that have not been disclosed”. This leaves a lot of questions unanswered, but it’s not the time to panic. Not yet, anyway. It could be for a number of reasons — for one, international travel is severely disrupted at the moment.

Rudess is one of the best keyboard players on this planet and his day job is with the prog metal phenomena that is known as Dream Theater. He’s not a newbie to the Purple family either, having had a stint with Dixie Dregs in the 90s.

[Update] Mike Airey posted on his Instagram:

Due to my dad currently being in hospital awaiting an operation, @jcrudess from @dreamtheaterofficial stepped up to the plate here in Mexico and did an amazing job of covering the keys position. I looked after #rogerglover and as such switched from stage left to right. A very different perspective and sound! Show went great. Crowd loved it. Hope to have dad behind the organ in no time!

Thanks to Blabbermouth for the info and to Nigel Young for the update.

Guitarist/producer/engineer Brian Tarquin has put together an album dedicated to helping the families and survivors of the Las Vegas mass shooting of October 1, 2017. The lineup features lots of guest musicians, with Steve Morse, Tony Carey, and Reb Beach among them. Other guests include Larry Coryell, Mike Stern, Billy Sheehan, Gary Hoey, Bumblefoot (Guns N’ Roses, Sons of Apollo), Hal Lindes (Dire Straits), Chris Poland (Megadeth) and Chuck Loeb (FourPlay).

The album is called Vegas Blue and is due for release as CD and digital download on March 27, 2020.

Track listing:

1. Distant Light (feat. Steve Morse & Hal Lindes)
2. Lights of Las Vegas (feat. Phil Naro & Ron Bumblefoot Thal)
3. Demonic (feat. Trey Gunn)
4. Tomorrow’s Another Day (feat. Phil Naro)
5. Vegas Blue
6. Evil In Men’s Hearts (feat. Tony Carey)
7. Forgiveness (feat. Phil Naro)
8. Know Me (feat. Phil Naro)
9. Hallowed Ground (feat. Trey Gunn)
10. Run for Cover (feat. Phil Naro & The Flyin’ Ryan Brothers)
11. Distant Heart (Vocal Reprise) (feat. Phil Naro, Steve Morse & Hal Lindes)

Thanks to BraveWords for the info.

Whitesnake’s Slide It In will be released on red vinyl via Rhino/Warner on both sides of the Atlantic on April 10. The 2LP set will contain the 35th anniversary remix previously released on Disc 3 of the Super Deluxe set from early 2019).

Slide It In was always meant to be a structured, more electric modern take on the classic blues-based hard rock that Whitesnake were famous for, but our new Hook City Hooligan, Mixer Extraordinaire Christopher Collier, has hand-tooled this classic record for the 21st century,” says David Coverdale. “Hearing all the performances so fresh and so clear after 35 years was amazing. Mel, Cozy and Jon’s playing on the record is as vital now as it was all those years ago. All the featured players shine. Not only did Christopher get the best out of the recording, but he gives the album a fresh coat of sonic paint bringing it right up to date. I’m personally thrilled with it.

Thanks to BraveWords for the info.

Steve Morse spoke to the Guitar World and (we think) it was the first time he went on record in such detail about his arthritis and how it affected his technique:

For about 50 years, I played with my thumb and two fingers on the pick. It really helped me play with exceptional clarity and muting. There are a lot of advantages with it. The only disadvantage is it wears out your wrist after 50 years. But I was doing 10,000 notes a day… most people should be fine! Now I’ve had to switch to one finger and the thumb because I have arthritis in my right wrist. It’s very painful to flex my wrist, so I save that for gigs.

I prepare with topical painkillers and other things too. I’ve switched to playing from the elbow. Certain string-skipping patterns and direction changes need the wrist to ensure you don’t hit adjacent strings… So now I have to practice longer and think it through. I’ve even changed how I play certain things, choosing a more laborious left-hand fingering to avoid skips with the right. It’s far from ideal, but I have to keep my chops up and finish strong!

Read more in Guitar World.

Thanks to Gary Poronovich for the info.

JLT was a guest on the 80’s Glam Metalcast, and he sounds like he’s still not over about Blackmore’s choice of personnel for the most recent Rainbow lineup and being smug about it:

Selected quotes from the chat (as transcribed by Blabbermouth):

Most people don’t know this true story, because I didn’t try to really come out and make people understand it all, because I just said, ‘Look, the guy’s gonna do what he wants to do.’ But I was talking to his so-called ‘management,’ ’cause it’s his mother-in-law for a good year. I’ve got all the e-mails to prove it. We were going back and forth talking about what the reunion of Rainbow would be. And I wanted an authentic Rainbow reunion; I wanted to get authentic players. I wanted the real Rainbow — not just the Rainbow I was in — but I wanted to bring up Doogie White and Graham Bonnet and I had Bob Daisley. Unfortunately, Jimmy Bain had passed and so on and so forth, but Don Airey… I wanted to make it sort of a Rainbow extravaganza. There would be a core band, whether it was Rondinelli or Burgi on drums or Dave Rosenthal — I spoke to all of them. I was lining all this up.

You may or may not know anything about the Blackmore camp, as we call it, but they’re very guarded. And the mother-in-law — the story is I had a spy in that camp, and the story is that she was badmouthing me to Ritchie saying that I wanted to take full control of it all. And that couldn’t be further from the truth. I was talking to Live Nation, which we had over a hundred and sixty dates promised, either headlining and/or special guests at all the big festivals. Our label, Universal, was gonna release not only an album but a four-song EP. I had Rock Fuel Media out of L.A., which was gonna do a 3D video of the whole thing. It was just gonna be gigantic and enormous — amazing. And she turned around and just dropped it like a hot potato — didn’t even give me any reason why. And I found out in a newspaper called Le Parisien that I wasn’t gonna be in the band. So I kind of laughed at it — simply because he said that I didn’t know about it. But I said, ‘Well, he’s making a mistake, but he doesn’t know about it.’ And I know that’s my opinion today.

The Rainbow [Ritchie] put together is nostalgic, but it is not Rainbow. They never did an album, and all they do is these spot dates. And anybody who goes to see them, it’s all over YouTube. And that’s really all I’ve gotta say about it. If you ask me, he’s cheating the public. And that wasn’t my intention. So happily I go along. Ritchie is allowed to do whatever he wants to do, and so I am. And I don’t need the hassle. So it’s great.

Thanks to Blabbermouth for the info.

A limited edition 10″ single from the upcoming Whoosh! will be released on April 18 June 20 in conjunction with the German Record Store Day. The content of the single is still a mystery at the time of this writing, and all we have for the cover art is this low resolution image. The single will be available in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.

[Update March 13] The 2020 Record Store Day was originally scheduled for April 18, but has been postponed to June 20 due to to the COVID-19 (Coronavirus) outbreak.

Thanks to Jörg and dirie for the heads up.

The ill-fated Whitesnake Japanese tour, that has already been rescheduled for March from October 2019, is now postponed until further notice due to “the ongoing threat of the Coronavirus”.

We regret to announce that WHITESNAKE’S Japan Tour which had been scheduled for March has been unavoidably postponed due to the ongoing threat of the Coronavirus.

Currently, we are working on rescheduling the dates. Your purchased tickets for the original dates will be valid for the rescheduled dates. Please ensure you keep your tickets safe. For those customers who wish to receive a refund, we will announce details of the refund process once we announce the rescheduled dates.

We deeply apologize to all parties concerned especially those customers who bought tickets and have been looking forward to the WHITESNAKE shows.

Japan is among the countries that are hit the hardest with the current outbreak of the virus, with 360 people infected and 7 dead (plus 706 infected and 6 dead on the Diamond Princess cruise liner docked in Yokohama) as of March 5, 2020.

A fairly comprehensive documentary of the history of Deep Purple Marks 1 and 2 has been put together by the Music Legends Magazine. It is a step above the slew of similar talking head documentaries from a few years back as this one actually interviews Nick Simper (and he tells the story of him being booted from the band from his own perspective).

Apparently, there should be part 2, covering Marks 3 and 4, but it is nowhere to be found on Youtube. In consolation we can offer you a similar in style Ritchie Blackmore documentary produced by the same people:

Thanks to Jim Collins for the heads up.