The ever prolific Martin Popoff has published another Rainbow book — Sensitive to Light: The Rainbow Story. He promises this to be a “major overhaul” of his out-of-print 2005 title English Castle Magic:

• 50% longer, at 120,000 words and 318 pages in 6″ x 9″ format
• two colour sections of photos (no pictures in the old one)
• new interviews [we presume as in “not included in the previous book” — ed.] with Ritchie Blackmore, Ronnie James Dio, Roger Glover, Jimmy Bain, Tony Carey, Graham Bonnet, Craig Gruber, Cozy Powell and more
• major overhaul in writing and analysis
• reissues and live output covered in more detail
• up to date with the Ronnie Romero lineup live shows and new songs

Promo blurb to follow:

The Man in Black!

His name is Ritchie Blackmore and his reputation is legion. But is it warranted? Find out now, as we look at the man’s career as reigning lord over the constantly evolving consortium of monster talents known as Rainbow.

Ronnie James Dio, Craig Gruber, Jimmy Bain, Tony Carey, Joe Lynn Turner, Graham Bonnet, Roger Glover, Bobby Rondinelli, Bob Daisley, Jimmy Bain, Doogie White and of course Ritchie himself. they all get their say through pages and pages of previously unpublished interview footage, on what makes the Man in Black tick, his pranks, his sly hirings and swift firings.

And of course, there’s the music. From the raw and fiery Dio years, through the criminally under-rated Down to Earth album, the smooth crooning Joe Lynn Turner era and into one final somewhat forgotten record fronted by Doogie White, it’s all examined here, track by track, fascinating tale by trick.

And let’s not forget, Rainbow is the band that wrote “Man on the Silver Mountain,” “Sixteenth Century Greensleeves,” “Stargazer,” “A Light in the Black,” “Tarot Woman,” “Long Live Rock ‘n’ Roll,” “Gates Of Babylon,” “All Night Long,” “Eyes of the World,” “Spotlight Kid,” “Can’t Happen Here,” “Stone Cold,” “Street of Dreams,” “Can’t Let You Go” and “Hunting Humans,” and this is the book you should read to find out why!

Price including shipping:

US orders: $37.00 US funds

Int’l orders (all books go air): $40.00 US funds

Canadian orders: $39.00 Cdn. funds

Ask me if you’d like a PayPal invoice (please indicate what country you are in), or just do yer usual and direct funds to martinp@inforamp.net.

Sweet postage savings to be had for multiple orders (or two of pretty much anything-long story, ask me!), especially for US orders. Or mail payment (personal check in US funds, cash, or INTERNATIONAL money order), to: Martin Popoff, P.O. Box 65208, 358 Danforth Ave., Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4K 2Z2.

Email me at martinp@inforamp.net with any further questions, and see www.martinpopoff.com for descriptions, cover art and ordering info for my other available 45 or so books.

Antihero magazine has an in depth interview with Glenn Hughes, where he offers his opinion on a variety of things, ranging from the loudest band today to the state of the music industry, to deeply personal matters like dealing with the death of his mum.

ANTIHERO: What was your best and worst experience from the Deep Purple era?

Glenn Hughes: There were so many beautiful insights into that band. We were a band that extended songs – Jon and Ritchie were such outstanding players – and I fell in love with that aspect of it. There were a lot of shows I can remember that were off the charts and just incredible! Things like Madison Square Garden, or the Chicago Amphitheatre, the Long Beach Arena in LA and of course Wembley Arena with Tommy Bolin. There’s been a lot of great stuff, but I don’t debate after a show whether it was good or bad, I’m always onto the next show, so I never really think too much about what I’ve done and I don’t analyse things too much.

Read more in Antihero.

Thanks to Yvonne for the info.

In the days leading to upcoming release of Flying Colors’ new album Third Degree, record company produced no less than tree promo videos — and that’s in addition to another one from a few weeks ago.
Continue Reading »

Yet another bout of vinyl reissues: Rhino is releasing Who Do We Think We Are (1LP), Burn (1LP), Come Taste The Band (1LP), and Made in Japan (2LP) as a part of their “Rocktober” event. Who Do We Think We Are and Burn are coming on October 11th, with Come Taste The Band and Made in Japan following a week later. All albums are pressed on purple vinyl.

Thanks to Jim Collins and BraveWords for the info.

The Ultimate Guitar has quotes from an interview with Michael Schenker, in which he explains why he refused to join Deep Purple, Ozzy, Thin Lizzy, and Motorhead (spoiler: he didn’t want to end up in somebody else’s band).

I didn’t go with Deep Purple, I didn’t go with Ozzy Osbourne, I didn’t go with Phil Lynott or Lemmy’s Motorhead – you name them, they all asked me to join them, but I did not think that I was the right person for that because there was a reason why I didn’t join the Scorpions, there was a reason why I left UFO.

Here endeth the fact and starteth the speculation.

One plausible theory is that his name was on the list of “acceptable replacements” for Blackmore, supplied to the band by Japanese promoters in order for the ’93 tour not to be cancelled. If so, it is quite possible that inquiries were made before the deal was struck with Joe Satriani.

Thanks to Liz and Gary for the info.

Ian Paice and Steve Morse will reprise their Rock and Roll Fantasy Camp appearance at another event to be held February 13-16, 2020, in Hollywood, California. This camp is billed (no less) as British Rock Royalty Vol.3 and alongside messrs. Paice and Morse will feature Jon Anderson of Yes and Rolling Stones keyboard player Chuck Leavell. Admission packages range from $799 for ‘Groupie’, to $6,999 ($6,499 before November 4th) for ‘Recording’. Check their website for more info.

Thanks to Akemi Ono for the info.

On September 27, 2019 earMusic will continue the series of Jon Lord vinyl re-releases with “Windows”, an album featuring a cooperation between Jon Lord and conductor and composer Eberhard Schoener. Schoener, who was also involved in progressive rock masterpieces like “The Turn of a Friendly Card” by The Alan Parsons Project may also be known for being the creator of the main theme for the TV series “Derrick“.

“Windows” was recorded live at the Herkulessaal in Munich on June 1st, 1974 as closing performance of the “Prix Jeunesse International” festival under the “Rock meets Classic” banner and was broadcasted by German TV station Bayerischer Rundfunk to a potential audience of 300 million people.

The album consists of two parts, the 18 minute piece “Continuo on B.A.C.H.” and the name-giving 32 minute “Window” (without “s”), both composed by Jon Lord and Eberhard Schoener.

“Continuo on B.A.C.H.” plays with the idea of continuing on “The Unfinished Fugue”, the last part of “The Art of Fugue” by Johann Sebastian Bach and features way more Jazz influences than focussing on Jon Lords hard rock background (as the two predecessors “Concerto for Group and Orchestra” and “Gemini Suite” did) using the orchestra more as soloists than using them in a more conventional rock meets classic way.

The first part of “Window”, called “1st Movement – Renga”, was composed by Eberhard Schoener and starts with a more blues-like feeling featuring the voice of David Converdale, later contrasted by two sproaons, who make this part hard to enjoy in its entirety.

As the name hints, the second part “2nd Movement – Gemini” recycles the vocal section from “Gemini Suite”, likely some sort of compromise because Jon Lord and Eberhard Schoener were running out of time. “Windows” was a contract work for the Bayerische Rundfunk to close the Prix Jeunesse International festival and had to be finished in time.

The closing “3rd Movement – Alla Marcia: Allegro”, composed by Jon Lord reminds of “Gemini Suite” but also includes moments which would later become parts of “Sarabande”, Jon Lords following solo work.

The band consited of Jon Lord on piano, organ and keyboards, his DEEP PURPLE bandmates David Coverdale and Glenn Hughes, both on vocals and Glenn also on bass, Tony Ashton on vocals and keyboard and last but not least SPENCER DAVIS GROUP members Ray Fenwick on guitar and Pete York on drums. The classical section included the Munich Chamber Opera Orchestra conducted by Eberhard Schoener, featuring sopranos Erminia Santi and Sigune von Osten, Günther Salber on violin, and finally well known actor Klaus Löwitsch as narrator.

Sadly the recording doesn’t include leaves out the “Einleitungsfanfare zu Also Sprach Zaratusthra” by Richard Strauss and all narration parts by Klaus Löwitsch without explaination. This might have been because the narration was completely in German and its content hard to guess even for native German speakers. Thanks to Youtube, there is at least a low resolution video of the whole event available for everyone to watch.

While being published on LP in 1974, the first straight-to-CD-transfer of “Windows” was released 1987 by Line Records, followed by a 25th Remastered Anniversary Edition on Purple Records in 1999 and a reissue in 2010. The current vinyl reissue is based on the 2017 CD issue.

Parts of this text were originally published on April 20th, 2017 as “Jon Lord – Windows“

Back in 1969, the lineup of DEEP PURPLE had seen a drastic change: Jon Lord, Ritchie Blackmore and Ian Paice split up with singer Rod Evans and bass player Nick Simper and hired the former EPISODE SIX musicians Ian Gillan and Roger Glover to complete the lineup.

One of the first shows to feature the new lineup was the live performance of Jon Lord’s „Concerto For Group and Orchestra“, an ambitious work to unite the different worlds of a rock band and a full orchestra which lay the foundation for Jon Lords career as composer / writer and solo artist. About a year later, the follow-up of the „Concerto“ faced the light of day during a live performance at the Royal Festival Hall, again featuring his DEEP PURPLE bandmates and conductor Malcolm Arnold.

While the „Concerto“ had its focus on band and orchestra as a whole, „Gemini Suite“ did focus on the different instruments, dedicating a track to guitar, piano, drums, vocals bass guitar and organ respectively. Also contrary to the „Concerto“, which took more than 40 years to be recorded in a studio, Jon Lord went to the studio in 1971 to record „Gemini Suite“ as a studio project. At that time, the rock career of DEEP PURPLE was in full flight and Ian Gillan and Ritchie Blackmore showed no interest in participating in the recording and were replaced by guitar player Albert Lee , multi talented Tony Ashton and singer Yvonne Elliman.

The 2019 vinyl release is based on the 2016 remaster by Rob Cass, using the original stereo mixes of the album. Luckily, the remaster doesn’t follow the popular trend of brick-walling every track and preserves the dynamics and overall feel of the original recording.

There’s still no explaination why the original artwork has been dropped and was replaced by completely new design, but the 2016 foreword by Roger Glover is also included on the inner sleeve.

Parts of this text were originally published on December 4th, 2016 as “Jon Lord – Gemini Suite“

CBC has an opinion piece about the multitude of connections between heavy metal and classical music, with our heroes getting a name check. It opens with a collage of Vivaldi peeking over Roger Glover’s shoulder and proceeds with

Take Deep Purple’s Ritchie Blackmore, for example. A self-professed classical music fan, many of his works in the ’60s were modelled on classical examples.

“I still listen to a great deal of classical music,” he said in 1985. “That’s the type of music that moves me because I find it very dramatic. Singers, violinists and organists are generally the musicians I enjoy listening to most of all.” If you listen to both Jon Lord’s keyboard solo and Blackmore’s guitar solo on Deep Purple’s “Highway Star,” both are distinctly Bach-like in harmonic progression and virtuosic arpeggio figuration.

Jon’s Concerto wasn’t mentioned, perhaps as not being “metal” enough.

Read more at CBC.ca.

Thanks to Gary Poronovich for the heads up.

On September 27, 2019 earMUSIC will reissue “Gemini Suite” and “Windows” as LP and also “Sarabande” as LP and CD:

Gemini Suite

Gemini Suite will be available as 1LP Gatefold and is already available as a CD Digipak.

TRACK LIST

1. Guitar: Solist Albert Lee
2. Piano: Solist Jon lord
3. Drums: Solist Ian Paice
4. Vocals: Solist Yvonne Elliman / Tony Ashton
5. Bass guitar: Solist Roger Glover
6. Organ: Solist Jon Lord

Windows

Windows will be available as 2LP Gatefold and is already available as a CD Digipak.

TRACK LIST

1. CONTINUO ON B.A.C.H.
2. Window

Sarabande

Sarabande will be available as 1LP Gatefold and CD Digipak

TRACK LIST

1. Sarabande
2. Aria
3. Gigue
4. Bouree
5. Pavane
6. Caprice
7. Finale