Bass Player magazine has an interview with session player extraordinaire Lee Sklar. And he thinks that working on Billy Cobham’s album Spectrum with Tommy Bolin, among others, was a highlight of his 2,000-album (by the latest count) career.

What are some of the moments in your career that you think of as outstanding?

“Stratus with Billy Cobham – bass players always want me to talk about that. I got to know Billy when The Section went out on a tour opening for the Mahavishnu Orchestra. When he had the opportunity to do a record of his own, I think he had Stanley Clarke in mind for the bass, but for some reason it didn’t work out.

“I had never really considered myself a chops monster, and those guys didn’t need one. They needed someone who could hold down the bottom, and that bassline just fell into place. We finished the whole album in three days; I did two days, and then Ron Carter played on some big band tracks.”

“What you hear on the album is pretty much the first take of every song, all done live without overdubs. Jan Hammer is one of the most gifted synth players, and Tommy Bolin’s guitar playing is some of the best that ever was. For them, that bass part just ended up being a foundation that holds things in place while they went off.

The whole interview can be found in the GuitarWorld.com, albeit there is nothing more Purple related in there.

Thanks to Uwe for the heads-up.

Louder Sound reprints online a Classic Rock interview with the members of Black Country Communion, conducted on the occasion of their second album release. The interview was originally published in the Classic Rock magazine issue #160, dated June 2011.

What began as a brief side-project for Glenn Hughes, Joe Bonamassa, Jason Bonham and Derek Sherinian has grown into something closely resembling the real deal: a contemporary classic rock group comprised of four musical over-achievers with their collective artistic compass pointing to some time in the early 1970s.

There is also another component to the group: the man whose vision it was the persuaded them to work together, producer (“don’t call me ‘svengali”) and co-songwriter Kevin Shirley. Like the band, whose combined CV includes time with Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Black Sabbath and Dream Theater, Shirley’s resumé also includes some of the biggest names in rock: Led Zeppelin, Iron Maiden, the Black Crowes, Journey… The full list is huge and impressive.

According to Shirley, “The master plan was begun before we even started. To the point where we scripted the ‘no touring until we had enough for a two-album set’. We had a little hiccup at the beginning of the second record, which was the result of many managers in the room, but other than that it’s been pretty much like clockwork.” Well, almost. With so many super-egos involved, ‘clockwork’ was never going to be an accurate description of how things work in Black Country Communion. But, as we learn, it’s been amazingly close – so far, anyway.

Continue reading in Louder Sound.

Classic Rock online has a short, but informative interview with Simon McBride. From the first music he remembers, to the song he’d want to play at his funeral, it’s all there.

The best record I’ve made

The Deep Purple record [2024’s =1]. It’s not every day you get to be a part of history. For me, doing that record was incredible, because at the minute with the guys in the band they’re just mates. But these guys are icons. I stand back in awe and go: “That’s me, that’s Ian Gillan, that’s Ian Paice… Jesus, why is my name in there?!”

Read more in Louder Sound

In other Simon news, he will be playing a string of European dates as a solo artist this summer. They are a combination of festival appearances and support slots for Lynyrd Skynyrd. The dates are so far unconfirmed on the artist side, but whatever we managed to collect from promoters and ticket vendors is in our calendar.

Vintage Guitar magazine publishes online a short interview with Simon McBride that originally appeared in the September 2024 print issue.

Did you adapt your style to Deep Purple, or was it already a good fit?
I think part of the beauty of Deep Purple over the years is they never really had a fixed “sign.” They have that ability to adapt. It was, “Let’s just play and see what happens.” I had ideas, which I pre-constructed in my studio; we all are always writing stuff. There’s a track called “Sharp Shooter,” which is from a riff I had. I thought, “That’s too heavy, they’re never going to use it.” But here we are. They’re using it! There are no rules.

Read more in Vintage Guitar

There’s a new, very unofficial remaster of California Jam. The video was cleaned up and upscaled, which is laudable, but the audio stays pretty much the same. Which is regrettable, as in our humble opinion it is the sound that’s the weakest link of the recording. Continue Reading »

A radio interview with Ritchie Blackmore and Ronnie James Dio from November 1975, where they discuss the new band they are starting. Continue Reading »

Some time in 2019 Ian Paice visited his colleague Lee Kerslake, who was filming a documentary about his musical career and battle with cancer. Lee passed away in 2020. Continue Reading »

Classic Rock magazine has an interview with Don Airey in their latest issue (#340, with Fleetwood Mac on the cover). We don’t have many further details at the moment, apart from the blurb:

Q&A: Don Airey
The Deep Purple keyboard player, go-to session guy and solo artist on his new album, touring, Purple, Blackmore.

If you happen to have access and there’s something interesting in there, please post in comments.

Another clip from the series of restored and upscaled classic Gillan videos. This is Unchain Your Brain from the BBC TV series Rock Goes To College, as performed live at Oxford Polytechnic in 1981. The video has been cleaned up nicely, sadly the sound is the same muddy affair as before. Continue Reading »

Candice Night was interviewed by eonmusic, and in between some things that have been discussed previously, the last Rainbow incarnation came up.

Finally, I wanted to touch on Rainbow’s shows in 2016, and onward; that must have been special for you, to help make that all happen.
One hundred percent. I absolutely loved doing that because, I mean, it’s funny being, you know, the wife, the best friend, the confidant, the wardrobe consultant, and everything, but also being such a big fan of that band and of his, and watching him in his element, doing the songs that I grew up on that I’m just such a huge fan of. So as he’s sitting there doing the track list and making it, I’m going; “wow!” And I honestly didn’t think he was going to ask me to do backing singing. I was just happy to be around that music in a live forum, so when he asked me to do it, and the other backing singer from Blackmore’s Night at that point, we were able to get out there and just stand on that stage and listen to those songs live, and a lot of the songs I had never heard. I mean, the first time I saw Ritchie live, was six months before I met him, I went to a concert out here in the Meadowlands. It was a huge stadium, and it was Deep Purple, Guns n’ Roses on their maiden tour with ‘Appetite for Destruction’, and Aerosmith on a triple bill.

That’s a great line-up!
I was boots on the floor, general admission, getting knocked around, and all five four of me, but that energy! I later heard that during ‘Smoke on the Water’ the fans had set the seats on fire. It was 1989 and that’s the first time that I saw Ritchie perform on stage, and then I met him a few months later because I was working at the radio station, and we met on the football pitch, but I’d never seen Rainbow from back in the day, and when he started reforming Rainbow in 1995, and of course, I went on tour with them, with Doogie White [singing], it was great to be part of that whole thing. But hearing those classic songs that I grew up with, yeah, being part of that, and watching that from the stage is just that was electric. I’m really glad I was part of it all.

Read more in eonmusic.

Thanks to BraveWords for the heads-up.