They’ve managed to keep it under wraps for quite some time, but now it’s official: Rory Dartanyan Blackmore was born on February 7 this year and is doing fine.

Thanks to Andrey Gusenkov for the info.

Rockpages has an interview with Russ Ballard — the man who wrote Since You’ve Been Gone and I Surrender, among many other tunes:

Rockpages.gr: How about Rainbow…? Their biggest hits were two of your songs…did you have the chance to meet Ritchie Blackmore?

Russ Ballard: I’ve never met Ritchie.

Rockpages.gr: Have you talked on the phone with him…?

Russ Ballard: I’ve never spoken to him. I recorded an album called “Winning” in 1976 that included the song “Since You Been Gone”. The interesting thing about that album was that it included songs that were later covered by a variety of artists and became hits. For instance, the title track was recorded by Santana and “Just A Dream Away” by Roger Daltrey. Apparently, what actually happened was the following: a band called Head East heard the song and thought that it could be a good single for them…and they were true! The song became a big hit of theirs in the States. So, they did a tour in America with Rainbow and Ritchie heard Head East’s version of the song and really liked it. At least, that’s what I thought happened. I do speak a lot to Graham Bonnet. He phoned me a few days ago asking me for Don Airey’s number and we started to e-mail each other quite a lot…Graham wanted to write a song for him. I asked him what kind of a song he wanted and he said something like a progressive rock tune.

Read more on Rockpages.gr.

Metal Shock has an interview with a fairly rare guest in the press — Nick Simper. He talks about the good old days, Screaming Lord Sutch, Purple, his collaboration with Nasty Habits, and his plans:

Even thought it was now so long ago, you incorporate Deep Purple tracks in your sets, do the songs hold a special place in your heart?

The main reason for playing the purple tracks was to present these tunes to new audiences. The majority of the MK1 songs had never been played live since 1969, and of course some of them, particularly the ones that I had a hand in composing, were special to me. It is amazing to see the reaction to these tunes by young and old who come to our shows. The fact that the mk1 albums still sell well proves that they have stood the test of time!

Read more in Metal Shock.

Thanks to BraveWords for the tip.

Last week news went around the musical blogosphere that Ian Gillan will appear at one of the business seminars in UK. This was a case of a misread press release, which mentioned

Meet and greet with Bernie Tormé, guitarist to Ozzy Osbourne and Deep Purple’s Ian Gillan

When the article appeared in the British newspaper The Independent, it became

Cook will be joined by Bernie Tormé, former lead guitarist for Ozzy Osbourne, and Ian Gillan, the Deep Purple singer.

Note subtle differences in punctuation.

From there the story was picked up by a number of music news outlets around the net where Gillan’s name was promoted to the title.

Rest assured, Gillan will not be appearing at the event. Bernie Tormé will.

Thanks to Nigel Young and Yvonne Osthausen for the detective work.

Don Airey will go on tour this September in support of his last album All Out. European promoter Six Concerts has announced dates in Germany, Netherlands, Switzerland, Czech Republic, Hungary and Austria. The gig in Vienna on September 21st will be of special interest as Don will be supported by Nick Simper, who is performing with the Nasty Habits. Full details in our calendar.

Don Airey’s band lineup for the tour will include:

• Carl Sentence –- vocals (Krokus, Geezer Butler Project)
• Darrin Mooney –- drums (Gary Moore, Primal Scream)
• Rob Harris –- guitars (Jamiroquai, Kylie Minogue, Gary Numan)
• Lawrence Cottle –- bass (Sting, Cher, Black Sabbath, Eric Clapton)

Thanks to Rudy Neises and Reinhard Lackner for the info.

David Coverdale will receive Vegas Rocks! magazine “The Voice of Rock” award. He will receive the award alongside Sammy Hagar. The ceremony will take place at The Joint inside Las Vegas Hard Rock Hotel and Casino on August 26th. The event will focus on the local Las Vegas rock scene as well as rock legends of the past and present to receive and present awards. It will be filmed for a worldwide live broadcast at VegasRocksTV.com. Tickets are available through Tickemaster.

Thanks to Blabbermouth for the info.

Legendary mastering engineer George Marino has passed away yesterday, June 4. He has lost a year long battle with the lung cancer.

George was a resident mastering engineer at New York’s Sterling Sound and over the course of his career worked with just about every recording artist out there. To put the things into prospective, his discography credits amount to 2,267 albums. Among them: The Battle Rages On, Come Hell or High Water, Whitesnake’s Live in the Still of the Night DVD and Greatest Hits compilation, Blackmore’s Night Under a Violet Moon, Dixie Dregs’ Industry Standard and Unsung Heroes, and Black Country Communion’s second album, to name a few.

Thanks to Glen Miller for the heads up.

Geeks of Doom has a new interview with Joe Lynn Turner.

On Blackmore:

The only difficulty we had once was we were going to have a punch out and we threw everybody out of the dressing room and we were staring at each other, glass of scotch in hand, yelling, ‘Fuck you!’ All of this kind of stuff. I said, ‘You want to hit me? Go ahead but you better take your best shot because I’m coming back [at you].’ It just kind of ended into a drinking session and talking it out and everybody was against the door kind of listening, I’ll never forget that; it was like a comedy and we ended up laughing hysterically about the whole thing and because of what jerks we were and how foolish we were about things! We thought about it: what’s the problem here? You’re the singer, you’re the guitar player. There’s no problem here, you’re doing a different job than I am. We got along great, I can honestly say Ritchie and I had a very frank, honest relationship. He had said to me, ‘I don’t like to get too close to people’ and we’re drinking again and I said, ‘I know that this will come to an end at some point.’ …but I think there were evil forces at work beneath this…

Read more at Geeks of Doom.

Jon Lord official website has announced his first public performance this year — a special presentation of Durham Concerto in Hagen, Germany on July 6. Yes, the usual (under the circumstances) disclaimers apply. This will be almost exactly a year since the date of his last public performance. Tickets are on sale.

Update (Jun 28): this show has been cancelled:

Unfortunately, due to on-going medical treatments Jon will not be able to perform in Hagen, Germany on July 6th. […]

Jon wishes to assure everyone that this is not a matter for concern, but it is a continuation of his regular treatment that has just taken longer than anticipated. He and the Hagen Philharmonic Orchestra hope to be able to reschedule the concert for later in the year.

British publisher Rufus Stone Limited Editions has announced an upcoming Deep Purple at the California Jam book being prepared for publication some time autumn this year. The book will include hundreds of black and white and colour images, many of them previously unpublished, and a lengthy essay on the show, it’s build up and aftermath. The text will be supported by collection of rare memorabilia including internal documents, set-lists, passes, posters, tickets and even the repair bills for the TV camera. The book will be available in a 300 page 12″ by 12″ deluxe edition, with a more affordable version also being planned.

Book preparation has been coordinated by Darker Than Blue, so they have the inside scoop in Simon’s blog.

The publisher has also set up a website where one can register to receive updates by email.

Thanks to BraveWords for the info.