Dixie Dregs will play eight dates in April, supported by the Steve Morse Band. The mini-tour will start in Nashville, TN, on April 18, 2024, and proceed further south, wrapping up on April 27th in Clearwater, FL. Dregs’ lineup will include Steve Morse, Andy West, Rod Morgenstein, Allen Sloan, with Jordan Rudess on keyboards. No surprises in the opening act: Steve will be joined by the regulars Dave LaRue and Van Romaine.
Tickets go on sale, for the most part, on Friday, January 19, with various presales starting earlier. Check our calendar for full details.
We’ve written before about that great cover band from Italy called Strange Kind of Women. They continue gigging around the continent, and their upcoming tour is promoted as you see above.
Now, this image is fed into some sort of the neural network (be it the one working on silicon or on regular meat and potatoes caffeine and avocado toast), and — bada-bing bada-boom — next thing you know, said neural network starts hallucinating that the actual Deep Purple are playing in February in Alicante:
Iconic English hard rock band: Deep Purple rocks La Nucia
Rock fans are in for a treat as Deep Purple takes the stage in La Nucia on February 24 at 8:00 PM.
The performance will be held at La Nucia’s Auditorium, Plaza Almàssera, 1, 03530 La Nucía.
Tickets for the event can be purchased online from entradas.com
British gear manufacturer Orange Amps is releasing a Glenn Hughes signature edition of their O Bass guitar. On the cursory view, this edition does not significantly differ from the stock guitars, apart from the cosmetics — the bass was previously available in orange and black, while the GH edition is purple. Oh, and about £150 more expensive.
A couple of years ago this company has already released a Glenn Hughes signature amp — also in purple trim, without any other visible modifications from the stock one.
A new version of the track Rose in Hell featuring Glenn Hughes and Ian Paice will be released on Turkish Delight III album, a project run by UK record label Escape Music. The song was originally featured on the first Moonstone Project album Time to Take a Stand, released back in 2006. The new version features Paicey and Hughes, along with Mike Slamer on guitar, Chris Child on bass, and Adam Wakeman on Hammond. The parts by Hughes and Paice are slightly different takes from the original 2003 sessions, while guitar, bass, and keyboard parts have been recorded anew.
Turkish Delight project is named after Khalil Turk, a chap who runs Escape Music, and is celebrating 30 years of the label. Also, from the extended Purple family, Ronnie Romero (Rainbow), Dino Jelusick (Whitesnake), Steve Morris (Gillan), Brian Tichy (Whitesnake), Greg Smith (Rainbow), Marco Mendoza and Joel Hoekstra (both Whitesnake) are all one way or the other affiliated with the label.
In related news, Escape Music will also release a completely new version of the whole first Moonstone Project album with new production, some new arrangements, new solos, and a brand new track featuring Ian Paice on drums. (Fun fact: for this session, Paicey used the very same old cowbell he used in 1973 for the Burn sessions). The album will be available on limited edition vinyl, CD, and digital. We’ll furnish further details when we have them.
Thanks to Matteo Filippini for the info.
[Updated Jan 13, 2024, to clarify what’s new with this release of the track]
Louder Sound is reposting an interview with Glenn Hughes, first published in 2020.
Flying away from the site of the California Jam, Glenn Hughes only twigged that he wasn’t actually under arrest when the ‘policewoman’ sharing his helicopter took off her hat, shook her hair loose and knelt down to unzip his white satin trousers.
Perhaps if he hadn’t been up all night partying with Ozzy Osbourne, or wasn’t still buzzing after performing in front of 400,000 festival goers, Deep Purple’s 21-year-old vocalist/bassist might have realised that his German tour manager Ossy Hoppe was taking the piss when he solemnly informed him that the local police had been handed film footage of Hughes snorting coke behind the amps during the quintet’s co-headlining show on the evening of April 6, 1974 and wanted to have a word with the young Englishman. As it was, the prank “scared the crap” out of Hughes, so much so, in fact, that he politely declined the offer of fellatio from his mischievous airborne travelling companion.
“I was too freaked out to do anything,” he recalls, ruefully. “Looking back, I wish I could have helped her out.”
Dressed in black, and sporting tinted sunglasses, a pashmina scarf and two fistfuls of chunky rings, we join Hughes today in an upscale boutique hotel in Cambridge. The Voice Of Rock, arguably the greatest British rock singer of his generation, is in fine fettle today as he reflects upon five remarkable decades in the music business, a journey which has included stints in Trapeze, Deep Purple, Black Sabbath and Black Country Communion and some wild adventures with drug dealers, gangsters, movie stars and beauty queens en route. Hughes freely admits that he has “lived the lives of 10 men” and “done everything that you can imagine, good and bad, wonderful and silly.”
“I’m so fortunate not to have died,” he confesses. “I’ve overdosed, been pistol-whipped, shot at, stabbed, run over in a car… and I’m still here to tell the tale. Where shall we start?”
An in-depth and well written review of the Deep Purple gig in Bengaluru, India, on December 17, 2023.
Three days after British rockers Deep Purple enchanted the crowd at the Bandland rock festival in Bengaluru, the gooseflesh lingers like the whiff of cologne. For many, they have been college heroes, cocktail companions, the kings of melodic power, the epitome of hard rock. Older-generation fans or youngsters, they knew many of these songs by heart. Every word, every instrumental passage, every back-up vocal line. Na na na na na, Na na na, Hush, Hush.
It was the band’s fifth tour of India. Vocalist Ian Gillan was 49 when they first played in April 1995. The Mumbai concert can be seen on YouTube and heard on the streaming platforms. The frontman was 56 when they played in May 2002. On the current gig, he had gracefully turned 78, his hair a long silvery delight, his shirt glistening in the blue light. The question was: Could he still hit those trademark high notes? Could he do the ‘Child In Time’ banshee-screech effortlessly? Could he bounce around like a young puppy, as he had told this writer 21 years ago?
Obviously he couldn’t. ‘Child In Time’ wasn’t on the set list, and the puppy bounce had made way for a languid soft-shoe shuffle. Yet, maturity and experience can lead to wisdom and discretion. If he didn’t get the screams of the opening song ‘Highway Star’ the way we’re accustomed to, he more than made up with the golden rule of staying totally in tune and managing one’s range. The middle register was immaculate, impeccable. His hand shook while holding the mic on the brilliant ‘When A Blind Man Cries’, but his voice didn’t waver. His singing on ‘Anya’ was a museum model of magnificence. For those hearing him for the first time, it was a dream come true. A story to be shared years later with grandchildren. “I saw Ian Gillan in the flesh”. “You’re serious, grandpa?”
With two stages at Bandland, one band started when the other was done and it was more or less the case with Deep Purple kicking off with their instantly recognizable “Highway Star” from 1972’s Machine Head. It set fans running across the food court to hurriedly catch a glimpse of the British legends who shaped rock, prog and even a bit of metal with their songs.
Vocalist Ian Gillan, at the age of 78, took a few expected breaks in their hour-plus set, and he remained ever the dependable frontman. While Don Airy was unable to come down, Adam Wakeman filled in on keys, alongside drummer Ian Paice (also a powerhouse behind the kit at the age of 75), bassist Roger Glover (ploughing away, also at age 78) and guitarist Simon McBride.
Having visited India with different lineups and eras across decades, some were savoring the fact that they could watch Deep Purple even today, belting out “When a Blind Man Cries,” “Anya,” and of course, “Smoke on the Water.” The encore included “Hush” and “Black Night,” with thousands shouting along for the last three songs. Deep Purple didn’t let the energy flag, making Bandland fulfilling from start to finish. Here’s hoping that sponsor or no sponsor, the spirit of rock has found another home in Bandland.
Meanwhile, “recipe aggregator” Slurrp profiles Chef Manu Chandra, who catered the event and got Reverend’s stamp of culinary approval:
The mouth-watering feast, which consisted of a delicious burrata-tomato salad, an assortment of sushi, cold cuts, canapes, pao bhaji, nalli nihari and bite-sized desserts was conceptualised by Chandra’s team. Sharing what looked like a fanboy moment between the star chef and the band’s bassist, the former shared a black and white picture of the two of them engrossed in deep conversation, while Glover held on to a cup of coffee.
In the endearing behind-the-scenes glimpse that Chandra shared on social media, he captioned the photograph of himself and Roger saying, “After a nourishing dinner of a fresh hot dog, some Nihari and rice by @singlethreadcaterers. I ask Roger Glover of @deeppurple_official if this was his first Indian tour. “I came here before you were born” he says. So you’ve seen a lot change I ask. Son, I’ve seen the whole world change, I’m actually a 102, but they don’t tell you that. Also I don’t usually eat before going up on stage, but this stuff…. Overwhelmed by how grounded these guys, who shaped rock and roll, and generations across the globe actually are.”
BraveWords publishes a chapter from the 2008 Tommy Bolin biography by Greg Prato, called Touched by Magic. Quite possibly it is the same chapter that was released as a teaser at the time of publication, but it’s been 15 years, and it’s a chapter telling about Tommy joining Purple, so here we go.
David Coverdale [Deep Purple/Whitesnake/Coverdale-Page singer]: “When Ritchie Blackmore decided to go [from Deep Purple], Ritchie had invited me to go with him to do the Rainbow project. But I felt uncomfortable about it – I didn’t think it was appropriate. And that’s what led to some abrasive aspects of Ritchie’s and my relationship for a while, unfortunately. When we had a meeting without Ritchie, my recommendations were number one, Jeff Beck, number two, Rory Gallagher, and number three, this guy called Tommy Bolin, which no one had really heard about. I’d heard Tommy Bolin on the Spectrum album by Billy Cobham, and I’d heard him on Alphonse Mouzon’s album, Mind Transplant. I was really impressed with this work, and I had no idea if he was a 70-year-old African American – I had no idea. So everyone went, ‘Oh wow, he’s pretty good!’ So we sent the word out. Now at that time, Purple was this huge global entity – one of ‘the rock ‘n’ roll aristocratic bands,’ before the market was so oversaturated, as it is now. Even we couldn’t find out where he was. And we found him a few miles down the road from where I used to live in Malibu – he was living there. We arranged for him to come down and jam with us. This guy walks in with multi-colored hair, lime-green Arabian knight…they weren’t trousers, they were like pre-Steven Tyler floating pants. And on four or five inch sole platform…they weren’t platform shoes, they were kind of platform sandals!”
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Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing