The year was 1976, and on March 24 Sweet were playing a show in Santa Monica, California. It was just days after the death of Paul Kosoff, so they decided to pay him a tribute by performing a cover of Free’s All right now for the encore. Ritchie Blackmore was in the neighbourhood, and joined them on stage for the occasion.
Sweet guitarist Andy Scott recalls:
It was completely spontaneous. We had met him a couple of nights earlier, and the one thing that he’d said to our tour manager, who used to work for Deep Purple a guy called Mick Angus was ‘You’d better let me get into the gig tonight. Because the last time we’d played Los Angeles he hadn’t been able to get into the show, because our management at that time and the record company had virtually sold out the gig even before tickets went on sale.
Ritchie said to [Mick Angus], ‘I’m gonna come, and I’m gonna get in this time.’ And we said, ‘Of course you are!’ And somebody made the joke, ‘If you want to get up, put your guitar in the boot.’ There was an offer to set up another stack, but I think Ritchie just said, ‘Plug me into anything, I’ll be alright.
And I think the only amps on my side of the stage that were available for him to plug into were the amps that I think were monitoring the synthesisers, which had a couple of horns in them, which left him with a rather loud and clear sound.
Thanks to Louder Sound for the quote, and to Sweet official YouTube channel for the clip.
Steve Morse recently sat down to chat with American Musical Supply about all things music, from guitar tone versatility to J.S. Bach. This is a long conversation, at an hour plus, but if you watch it directly on YouTube, there is a convenient table of contents with direct links to individual chapters. Or just sit back and watch the whole thing here.
Bonus: Steve Morse & the AMS Jam Band cover Jeff Beck’s ‘Cause We’ve Ended as Lovers:
Steve Morse collaborated on a new track with guitar player Angel Vivaldi. They have recorded a cover of New Country by Jean-Luc Ponty. Continue Reading »
An online publication called Cult Following somewhat belatedly, but eloquently reviews=1:
New hard rock from the Smoke on the Water gang. Some things never change. With Deep Purple, a lacklustre album image and the promise of unwavering rock fundamentals are a guarantee. No problem for those stuck with this sound for decades but some bands never evolve. Does =1 give Deep Purple a chance to grow their noise? Yes. Do they take it? Sort of. The variations to their style and sound here are unexpected but not necessarily unique or all that world-beating. If anything, the band has turned away from the rock which formed them and towards alternative rock. It will send shivers down the spine of those ABandOn purists. Shivers of joy. There is a grunge feel to =1, a deeper feel to their sound which gives way to a surprise depth and interest. A blur of noise worth listening to.
Another Glenn Hughes Australian interview, this time with the Spotlight Report.
SR. Now that you are celebrating the 50th anniversary of Burn, how does it feel to look back on such a landmark album?
GH. Look, it was a moment for all of us where we were at a castle writing that album, having fun, not really knowing how it was going to be received. I just knew at that time we all felt it was a strong piece of work. All these years later, reminiscing about it, playing these songs for myself and people that want to come and hear it is a very feeling to me.
SR. That’s incredible. What inspired you to embark on this anniversary tour?
GH. I may be the only one that is doing this, you know. I think Coverdale did something like this about 12 years ago, but for me to say goodbye to that era is an opportunity I just wanted to make sure was going to exist. Because I can’t keep doing this. So, it’s important for me to close the door on this particular show, which I will do in Dubai.
SR. Apart of celebrating this 50th anniversary, are you working on something else?
GH. The album, I just made an album in June in Copenhagen, it’s coming in March. So next year will be a new Glenn album. I’m looking forward to releasing it.
Continue reading in the Spotlight Report (caveat: there are transcription mistakes).
Andrew : How did you find working with Blackmore? At that stage he was moving more towards a classical style that has distinctively become his over the years.
Glenn : Ok Andrew, let’s talk Turkey here. The Holy Trinity, in my opinion of the early 70s, was Blackmore, Beck and Clapton and then of course, Tony Iommi. I joined the band with John Lord and Ian Pace and Blackmore, who was a very strong soloist as well. It was a different thing for me to do. As i mentioned to you before it worked because they didn’t want to replicate Mark II. Why would they want to have somebody sounding like Ian Gillan or somebody playing bass like Roger Glover? It wasn’t working to them any longer. David and I came in and refreshed the band.
Andrew : Working with a young unknown at that stage in David Coverdale what was that like? What did you find that he brought to the band and especially “Burn”?
Glenn : When he passed the audition they didn’t tell him for like two weeks they kept him waiting. When they did get a hold of him, David came down to see me at my house and we became very fast friends as we were going to be singing these songs together, so my friendship has been very good with him from all these years ago. He’s got a great voice, he is a funny guy and again Andrew, I think the vocal arrangement and the partnership we had vocally on the “Burn” album, “Stormbringer” and “Come Taste the Band” is exceptional.
In other Glenn related news, his former guitar player JJ Marsh is releasing a new album with a project The Master´s Brew, led by keyboard player Tomas Bodin (of The Flower Kings fame). The album is called Elixir, and you can find more information on bodinmusic.com.
Thanks to BraveWords for the heads-up on Glenn’s interview, and to Pär for the JJ news.
BBC Four TV channel will be showing a Radio 2 in Concert Deep Purple appearance from November 16, 2017, playing in front of a live audience at the BBC Radio Theatre. It will air on October 4, 2024, at 22:05 local time, and will be available on the BBC iPlayer for 30 days after that.
Jo Whiley presents highlights from Deep Purple’s recent concert at the BBC Radio Theatre. One of the biggest names in rock, they perform some of their biggest hits from the past 5 decades. These include Black Night, Hush, Perfect Strangers, Bloodsucker and the classic, Smoke On The Water as well as tracks from their latest album, Infinite.
Before their November performance, the band’s drummer and founding member Ian Paice said: “We’re really looking forward to performing for BBC Radio 2 In Concert. It’s been many years since we did something like this. But through all those years one thing has never changed. Playing live is the only way to capture the spirit of Rock n Roll music, because even 60 years after it reared its wonderful rebellious head that’s what it still is! There is no safety net of the recording machine to ‘fix things later’, you get it right or get it wrong. For the musicians it’s, an adrenaline rush, concentration and invention, but most of all it’s fun. That’s why we started doing it when we were kids. We hope you have fun too being on the receiving end.”
The recent series of special In Concert performances were held to mark BBC Radio 2’s 50th birthday, featuring a line-up of legendary performers from the past 5 decades.
Nathan and John at the Deep Purple Podcast are celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Concerto for Group and Orchestra resurrection with a couple of episodes. The cherry on top is a bonus podcast with almost an-hour-and-a-half chat with Paul Mann. We highly recommend picking up a time to listen through it. Continue Reading »
The Bass Player magazine reprints online a 2010 vintage interview with Glenn Hughes conducted in the wake of the first Black Country Communion album.
How did Black Country Communion come together?
Joe was a fan of my work with Trapeze. We’d been hanging out, secretively making music, knowing that one day we’d do something. Then Kevin Shirley saw us play together at the House of Blues for a Guitar Center event and suggested we get a full band together.
He recommended Jason Bonham and Derek Sherinian, and so the next day we got them on the phone and agreed to meet for an exploratory session. When we got into Kevin’s studio, we crossed our fingers and counted the beat off. Four sessions later, we had an album.
![[hand]](/hs-pics/portraits/hands/mcbride2.jpg)
![[face]](/hs-pics/portraits/faces/mcbride2.jpg)
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing