Ian Paice appears as a special guest of the first album by Italian singer from Florence Andrea ‘Ranfa’ Ranfagni. The album is called Little Hard Blues and was released on December 24, 2007. Other guests appearing on the album are Bernie Marsden, Tracy G (Dio), James Christian (House of Lords) and Roberto Tiranti (Labyrinth). You can listen to clips from the album at Ranfa’s myspace page. Order the album by emailing ranfamv@libero.it.
Track list:
1. Everybody knows (with Bernie Marsden)
2. Mars
3. Forget my boogie (with Ian Paice)
4. Just got paid (ZZ Top cover)
5. It will be not this blues (with Roberto Tiranti)
6. Who needs them?
7. May Day (with Bernie Marsden)
8. New baby (with Bernie Marsden)
9. Mrs. Hope
10. Little hard blues (with James Christian )
11. I learned my lesson well (with Tracy G)
12. Easy woman (with Bernie Marsden)
The slew of musical documentaries from Classic Rock Productions started flooding the market a few years ago. After buying a couple of them on DVD, I decided that it’s a waste of money. If you decided the same, there’s another option available now — you can download them from rockexpress.com for 3 GBP each. Their latest offering — a documentary about Burn — you can even watch online for free. This time, at least Glenn Hughes offers some input into a parade of talking heads. Other video materials include snippets from Doing Their Thing, California Jam, Leeds Polytechnic Project and Rises Over Japan.
In September 1995 the last incarnation of Rainbow started tour in support of the new album. The show on October 10 in Düsseldorf, Germany, was filmed for the Rockpalast. Sadly, it still awaits to see the light of the day as an official release. As bootleg collectors know, it’s probably far from being the best performance of the tour. But it definitely had it’s moments. Here’s one of them:
Glenn Hughes has published a studio report #2 on his official site:
I have just completed my new album… we are mixing @ the moment, and will be mastering in January… I’m always excited about recording new albums, the songs are personal to me, as they are constantly being shaped thru out the year… Well here goes..
Read the report and see pictures from the studio here.
Steve Morse will appear at the NAMM show to do a signing session at the Engl booth on Saturday, January 19th at 1 pm. 2008 NAMM show will be held at the Anaheim Convention Center in California and Engl will be in Hall E, Booth 1454.
Rumours were circulating for a while that a South American Deep Purple tour is in the works. Recently DPAS reported that Paicey had to cancel an appearance on February 28 in UK citing that he will be touring with Deep Purple at the time. Now, the first dates started trickling in. So far they are very unconfirmed.
See the dates in our tour central. Please send us any updates and ticket info.
Thanks to Mike McBain for the Last.fm link and to Oscar Garcia Verastegui for the Peruvian promo clip.
This is not really directly related to anything Purple, but we never said that this blog would be. 😉
A must-read article on wired.com: David Byrne talks about the state of music business. Personally, I don’t care much for his music, it’s not my cup of tea. But I care for the state of music business because I care for music in general. David is a smart guy and he’s been around the block in this business a couple of times. And when he has to say something, it’s good to listen.
What is called the music business today, however, is not the business of producing music. At some point it became the business of selling CDs in plastic cases, and that business will soon be over. But that’s not bad news for music, and it’s certainly not bad news for musicians. Indeed, with all the ways to reach an audience, there have never been more opportunities for artists.
The fact that Radiohead debuted its latest album online and Madonna defected from Warner Bros. to Live Nation, a concert promoter, is held to signal the end of the music business as we know it. Actually, these are just two examples of how musicians are increasingly able to work outside of the traditional label relationship. There is no one single way of doing business these days. There are, in fact, six viable models by my count. That variety is good for artists; it gives them more ways to get paid and make a living. And it’s good for audiences, too, who will have more — and more interesting — music to listen to. Let’s step back and get some perspective.
This morning, January 3, BBC Radio 4 broadcasted a programme celebrating 40 years of Heavy Metal, focusing on founding fathers: Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple. Some short interview clips from the 80s with Robert Plant and David Lee Roth, plus new interviews with the Sab’s first manager and Gillan. Usual stories – why he quit, the story behind Smoke (Eden au Lac version) etc.
You can listen to the show at the Radio 4 web site (you can choose from Flash player with high bitrate and standalone RealMedia stream at 64 kbps max).
What would you think, if you get an sms telling you Deep Purple is doing a private gig tomorrow night and you’re kindly invited to it? April Fool’s Joke?
For me being a Purple fan for over 30 years (I’m 41) it sounded like heaven on earth. 20 hours later my brother and me saw a fantastic Concert in the Kongresshalle in Zurich.
The whole band seemed to enjoy the evening and played absolutely relaxed a couple of their greatest hits.
As a big Paicey fan a dream came true to watch one of the greatest rock drummers live so close. Thanks to little Ian for the drum stick!
For the encore songs Ian Gillan wanted us as close as possible near the stage and the crowd did so …
And last but not least: Thanks to the private banker and his friends who organised and financed this evening!
![[hand]](/hs-pics/portraits/hands/gillan3.jpg)
![[face]](/hs-pics/portraits/faces/mcbride6.jpg)
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing