Steve Morse was interviewed by the Six String Alliance. At over an hour and twenty minutes long, in-depth does not even begin to describe it. Hint: push it full screen to see individual chapters.
In this in-depth interview, legendary guitarist Steve Morse reflects on his personal path, artistic growth, and the drive that keeps him pushing ahead. From reshaping himself through life’s challenges to bringing the Steve Morse Band back together, Steve offers honest insight into his perspective, his music, and where he’s headed next.
From the letters to our better-late-then-never desk, we are glad to present you an actually pretty decent quality recording of the two early Artwoods performances from 1964, featuring Jon Lord. It apparently came out a few years ago: in 2016 on vinyl, and in 2023 on CD and digital. The latter are available via Amazon, and, presumably, other outlets as well.
Amazon blurb reads:
Back in 1964 before they secured a recording contract, the Artwoods were making a name for themselves on the live UK R&B scene. One of the venues where they played was Dick Jordan and Geoff William’s Klooks Kleek in West London. The Artwoods cut their teeth as a support band and got such a positive response from the crowd that they were soon headlining their own nights. Like many R&B bands of the day, the Artwoods set comprised of standards like Smack Dab In The Middle, Big Boss Man, Kansas City, Shame Shame Shame, Detroit City and Green Onions. This 2-CD release features two different sets that the band played at that legendary venue in 1964 featuring a line-up of Art Wood (vocals/harmonica), Derek Griffiths (guitar), Jon Lord (keyboards), Malcolm Pool (bass) and Reg Dunnage (drums). The band are on fire and on most of the tracks cut loose instrumentally when Wood is not singing. As a special treat, Long John Baldry joins the band on the first set to lend his vocal prowess to Five Long Years and Got My Mojo Working. Licensed from Dick Jordan this is a must-have for fans of the Artwoods and classic British R&B. This 2-CD set comes with liner notes penned by Ian Shirley featuring an interview with former Artwood, Derek Griffiths.
Our regular Uwe Hornung adds:
This isn’t some hissy and murky audience recording (like some Artwoods live recordings released before), but actually a “professional” one (for the time!), distortion-free where all the instruments and the vocals can be heard well and Jon’s (back then still) Lowrey organ is prominent throughout. Interesting to hear how already in 1964, at 21 years of age, he was very rhythmic in his organ approach (though he solos a lot too).
Back in 2024, an outfit called Defenders of the Faith published an interview with Nick Simper on the occasion of the two Warhorse studio albums being reissued. That interview completely slipped under our radar, until now.
Warhorse’s self titled debut was significantly heavier than anything you had done with Deep Purple. In the same breath, Purple were pushing the envelope that year as well with In Rock. Did you feel a sense of rivalry with Purple or was Warhorse rather a musical reflection of the ear, hard rock subsequently morphing into heavy metal?
NS: Not really. Jon Lord had to say in an interview, somebody asked why I wasn’t in the band any longer. *laughs* He told a bit of a lie and he said, “We wanted to go in a heavier direction and he couldn’t do it.” I was really, seriously annoyed with that because not only was it a deliberate lie, but I was pushing for Purple to become heavier all the time. Of course, there was all the classical stuff going on which was kind of undermining what I wanted to do really. Everybody went with it because we didn’t have much else going on at the time *laughs*. It seemed a good idea, but after a while, it was kind of wearing a bit thin. Ritchie Blackmore and myself, we came from pretty hard musical backgrounds.
That was the only kind of thing in the back of my mind. What I did, I wanted to do it louder and noisier and heavier than anything they did. It was funny because when I was working with Marsha Hunt, we worked on 3 or 4 shows where there were quite a few acts on them. We kept coming up with Deep Purple and it was not embarrassing, but for me, they were seeing me doing something I wasn’t happy doing. After we started Warhorse, I was dreaming of the day we’d be on the same bill as Deep Purple and it never happened, ever *laughs*! There you go. That’s the way it was. A lot of people, they sort of compare it and they say, “There’s echoes of Purple there.” I think, well, it was the same sort of lineup. We were striving for the same kind of things, I guess. The Hammond organ sound and loud guitars, there’s gonna be some kind of similarities, isn’t there? You can’t help it *laughs*.
This is equally both educational and heartwarming. In November 2024 Ian Gillan invited a group of aspiring young musicians from his home town of Lyme Regis on the Southern coast of England to the Deep Purple gig in Birmingham. He gave them the full tour of the backstage, they got to meet the band and crew, learned what’s happening under the hood of a rock’n’roll touring machine, and in what order the cylinders are firing in that killing machine, the one with big fat tyres and everything. All lovingly filmed by Craig Hooper. Enjoy!
Thanks to Mike Whiteley, Erik W, and Uwe Hornung for the heads-up.
Glenn Hughes, Chad Smith, and Luis Maldonado being interviewed some time circa the Re-Machined tribute album sessions. That album came out in 2012. Continue Reading »
A couple of days ago, Glenn Hughes posted to his social media accounts that he had to cancel his upcoming US tour due to doctor’s orders. Today, the promotor for the gig in Sweden this summer, said that Hughes now has been ordered to cancel the European dates as well.
Just a quick note to our Canadian readers, the paperless version of Martin Popoff’s book Seven Decades of Deep Purple is currently heavily discounted at $2.99 on both Amazon Kindle and Kobo.
If you’re still on the fence, here’s another short review of the book:
I have read all of Martin Popoff’s previous books on Deep Purple, Seven Decades is a very well-written, informative, and entertaining book. All the band’s studio albums, and a smattering of Live ones, are discussed. It’s a chapter per album from Shades (1968) through to = 1 (2024). The author’s many chats with the band over the years form the majority of the story. Lots of great pictures from every era. It’s 640 pages filled with everything a Purple fan would want to know, Highly recommended.
Thanks to Mike Whiteley for the heads-up and the review.
The indefatigable Purple Strangers of Finland will be holding their Purple Night 2026 on January 31 at the On the Rocks club in Helsinki. This year, the gathering will be celebrating two albums in particular — Fireball and Rainbow Rising. There will be two tribute acts: The Mule, preforming Fireball in its entirety, and Leverage, performing a tribute to Dio-era Rainbow.
The following announcement has been posted on Glenn Hughes’ official site:
Glenn Hughes – 2026 Live Shows Cancelled
Jan 9th, 2026 | no responses
We regret to inform you that due to a minor health issue that requires his attention over the upcoming months, Glenn Hughes has made the difficult decision to cancel his 2026 USA Tour.
Glenn comments:
I’m taking advice from my medical team, who I am working closely with.
Hoping to see you, on the road of happy destiny.
Ticket & VIP Upgrade refunds will be available from your point of purchase.
Although it explicitly speaks only of the US dates, all the 2026 tour dates have been removed from his calendar. We are marking them accordingly, as cancelled, or downgrading to unconfirmed.
No further elaborations are available at this moment, so that’s all we know.
![[hand]](/hs-pics/portraits/hands/mcbride7.jpg)
![[face]](/hs-pics/portraits/faces/mcbride4.jpg)
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing