…And not just the album.

Jeb Wright did an interview with David Coverdale for Classic Rock Revisited. It is one of those longish, in depth interviews that you’ll never see in the mainstream media. David talks at length about his Purple days and tells many revealing stories.

One of them is that a major motivation behind the Purple Album project was raising Purple profile stateside:

Jeb: Let’s jump in and talk about The Purple Album. I am 48 years old, so I was introduced to Whitesnake when Slide It In came out in America. I, then, went back and discovered the earlier Whitesnake albums and I had no idea you had even been in Deep Purple until I later discovered those albums. When I saw the press release for this album, I just about shit. I could not believe Coverdale was going to revisit the Purple era.

David: What was fascinating for me was that Purple in Europe was the equivalent of Zeppelin over here; they were huge. Whenever I would go to Europe to do promo, invariable the first question was, “David, how was it with Deep Purple?” The interview would have an immediate transition. I am the least nostalgic person I know, as I am totally happy with who I am, where I am, and with what I’m doing now and what I plan to do tomorrow.

In America, it was really underreported when we had the success of Slide it In, then the fucking POW of the 1987 album. It was a shock to most people over here. When we first played “Burn” in 2004, which was at the bands request, this is prior to Facebook and Twitter, Whitesnake.com lit up with people going, “Oh my God, what is this song? Is this a new Whitesnake song?” I think a lot of these songs may be new to a lot of fans in the USA.

Quite a bit of new light was also shed on the abortive Mk3 reunion:

Jeb: How close did a Deep Purple and David Coverdale reunion come to being a reality?

David: Glenn Hughes and I are very close and Glenn’s been after me to do some sort of a Purple reunion for some time. To be honest, and I mean no disrespect to my former colleagues, but it was never something that was interesting enough to stop me from doing what I love, which is Whitesnake.

I certainly loved working with Deep Purple and it was the beginning of my journey. I am forever grateful to those guys for having the courage to give me the opportunity, but it was not something I was wanting to do. I am totally happy to create new stuff working as Whitesnake.

A representative of Jon’s called me just after he’d been diagnosed with cancer, to give me that information, which was chilling enough. He said, “Jon said, on his recovery, would you be up for doing some kind of Deep Purple reunion, whether it was Mach III, or whatever?” I said, “Absolutely, I will be there for you.” As we know, sadly, Jon passed away. This opened up an opportunity to reach out, after thirty years of acrimony, with somebody that I truly respected, as a musician, which is Ritchie Blackmore. One reason was to express and commiserate the loss of Jon.

Regardless of whatever, those guys basically formed Deep Purple and were incredibly influential to me. I’ve been able to tell everyone else I worked with how much I appreciated the opportunity, and still do to this day, other than Ritchie. Ritchie doesn’t really bother reading rock mags and stuff like that. When I’ve said these things before, he doesn’t see them. It was important for me to reach out to him for those reasons, with no other agenda whatsoever.

Jeb: When was this happening?

David: This was in 2012, and we communicated into 2013, and then he asked me if I’d speak to his manager to which, of course, I said, “Absolutely.” She came on and said, “Can you keep a secret?” I said “Of course not, I’m a fucking singer.” She said, “Would you be interested in doing something with Ritchie? My first thought was like Blackmore Coverdale like I did with Jimmy in Coverdale Page. That would be a very exciting musical premise because he introduced me to his first songs that he did on the first Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow album. They were initially songs he was proposing for Deep Purple.

I love the early Rainbow stuff. Rainbow Rising, are you kidding me? When Cozy Powell came on board? That was fantastic. The idea of being able to do Purple, Rainbow and Whitesnake was interesting, but then she said, “Ritchie is curious, who would you go for, Roger [Glover] or Glenn?” I said “I really appreciate the musicality of Roger, and he produced two of my solo albums, but Glenn is my soul brother.” I recommended Keith Emerson as the keyboard player. He was a fan of Purple and Jon and Keith had a very healthy musical rivalry. Keith is a breathtakingly gifted musician. Nobody had spoken to Keith, as this was just a discussion.

It was during the talks for this that I started digging into our original work. I was going, “I hope he’s into a fresh coat of paint on some of these songs.” I was a fucking kid then. It was the first time I had written for an album. I can hear naivety all over the place. I started working on bits and pieces. I thought my arrangement of “Sail Away” could have been a nice transition for what he is doing with his Blackmore’s Night and we could tie it in with that thing and maybe even do something with Candice on that song. Once Carol, his manager and I, started talking about their vision for touring and stuff it just did not resonate and I wrote her a very, very respectful email withdrawing from whatever that project could have gone forward with.

There’s lots more of interesting stuff there. This is just scratching the surface. Just go and read it.

Glenn Hughes will tour Europe in September and October this year as a solo artist. We have 22 dates so far, starting on September 15 in Milan and finishing October 16 in Leffrinckoucke, France. Tickets for a handful of dates are already on sale.

There are no UK dates, but here’s a hint: the last French date is essentially Dunkirk.

Support for the whole tour is announced as Jared James Nichols. There’s no word on who will be in Glenn’s backing band.

Full details in our calendar.

Roger Glover and Ian Paice explaining how they see the reasons behind the band’s success:

And although we have a feeling of seeing this somewhere before, it’s still a good snippet from the official video channel.

To celebrate Ritchie’s 70th, The Guardian has reprinted a 1978 interview from Trouser Press magazine with the man in black. And it’s one of those rare gems where he is being thoughtful, open, self reflecting and, for the most part, quite serious. To the bemusement of the interviewer:

Ritchie Blackmore turned out to be a genial model of decorum, and was fully prepared to discuss anything. Indeed, when we got over the surprise of discovering him to be a pleasant fellow, he even fielded borderline tactless questions, unthinkable to ask of someone with his image. My only complaint about the thoughtful and open Mr Blackmore was that he insisted on keeping his juiciest comments off the record.

A lot of ground was covered, from starting to play guitar at age 11, to Outlaws, to Purple, to Rainbow, and everything in between and beyond. Some of Blackmore’s words became prophetic 30 years later:

Ever considered playing another kind of music?

Yeah, I have thought about that, but I’m very interested in extreme rock’n’roll. At the other extreme, I’m interested in medieval modes, quiet 15th-century sitting in a park playing little minuets … I don’t like to mix the two.

Go and read it in The Guardian.

Whitesnake’s record label has released another promo video for their upcoming Purple Album. Soldier of Fortune manages to avoid the hair metal clichés and stay closer to the original:

Thanks to Blabbermouth for the info.

The Rolling Stone magazine has conducted a reader’s poll about artists that should be inducted into the infamous Rock’n’Roll Hall of Fame in 2016. And perhaps surprisingly for them, but not so much for the rest of the world, Deep Purple took the top spot. The magazine explains away:

You can’t blame the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame nominating committee for not bringing Deep Purple in. They’ve put them on the ballot several times over the past few years, but for whatever reason the voters just don’t seem to be going for them. It probably has something to do with the fact that the vast, vast majority of voters are American. If the people of Europe had the chance to vote, Deep Purple would have been in years ago. Sadly, many people in America see them as merely the “Smoke on the Water” band. Throughout the rest of the world, Deep Purple are seen on the same level as 1970s giants Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath. They continue to play huge shows even though guitarist Ritchie Blackmore bolted over 20 years ago. If they ever got into the Hall of Fame, there’s a sliver of a chance he’d reunite with them.

RS, here’s your sliver:

Personally, I couldn’t care less. I would never go.

Thanks to Classic Rock for the info.

Jacky Paice writes that the Sunflower Superjam 2015, scheduled for September 24th and 25th this year, had to be postponed until some time in April 2016. The reasons are numerous, but can be summed up as “a crazy culmination of circumstances”. Not least of which is the expected arrival of grandchildren twins at the beginning of August.

We have received more information from Cleo Records regarding upcoming Rainbow live releases from the 1979 tour. As we’ve reported previously, the Denver show will come out on vinyl on May 12. This will be the first of the three releases, followed by the show from Long Island, November 30, 1979, and Chicago, October 12.

The Long Island vinyl release is pencilled in for September. A 3CD box containing all three shows should come out around the same time. Chicago vinyl will appear later on.

These soundboard recordings were widely bootlegged, but Cleo’s releases are the first ones properly licensed from Blackmore. Unfortunately, they could not obtain the master tapes, so the audio is “remastered from the best sources that we could find”.

Thanks to Matt Green for the info.

Bernie Marsden has been awarded a honorary Master of Arts degree by his home town University of Buckingham. The presentation speech delivered by Professor John Clarke lists Bernie’s numerous achievements, from scoring a #1 US hit with Here I Go Again, to his recent charity work.

We all at The Highway Star would like to extend our warmest congratulations.

Thanks to Yvonne for the info.

Perfect Strangers of Finland will be holding their 7th Purple Night event on Friday, May 29, in Helsinki, Finland. This year it will be dedicated to Ritchie Blackmore, who has celebrated his 70th birthday a couple of weeks ago. Doogie White will be a special guest of the night, performing Purple and Rainbow classics with local musicians.

What: Purple Night
When: Friday, May 29, from 8:00pm to 4:00am
Where: Tavastia Club, Urho Kekkosen katu 4-6, 00100, Helsinki, Finland
Tickets: 13 EUR + service fee online, 15 EUR at the door.
More info: here

Thanks to Jari Kaikkonen for the info.