Glenn Hughes was interviewed for Sonic Perspectives. It is not overly long, but fairly informative on Glenn’s numerous past and ongoing projects. Enjoy! Continue Reading »

A vintage review of a Rainbow gig at the New York’s Beacon Theater. It first appeared in Sounds magazine on July 24, 1976.

Rainbow hit nirvana

Blackmore´s Rainbow
Beacon Theatre, New York

Concert review by Peter Crescenti

IT MAY be a few months before Blackmore’s Rainbow appears in Britain for the first time, but even if they have to wait until distant `77, Blackmore freaks, when they finally do see the band live, will no doubt decide that the wait, no matter how long, was damned well worth it. Rainbow, now in its second version, is simply one of the most dynamic and energetic heavy rock outfits in the free world.
Ritchie Blackmore is a happy man again, happy because now that he’s left Deep Purple, he’s once again free to make the kind of rock’n’roll he loves best — visceral and explosive, an atomic dose of chordal calamity — and by no coincidence, it’s the same sweaty brand of rock thousands of rockers have become addicted to over the last ten years, hooked, mainly, by fixes served up by the Main Man of heavy metal, Ritchie Blackmore.

Continue reading in My Things – Music history for those who are able to read.

Many thanks to Geir Myklebust for the continuing efforts on digitizing his archives.

Louder Sound has a short, but fairly informative interview with Glenn Hughes.

What’s the first thing that comes into your mind when you think about either the Burn album or the sessions for it?

Freshness. I had joined the band from Trapeze, and then David [Coverdale] joined seven weeks later. Everything felt brand new. There was a sense of chumminess and back-slapping. Even [Ritchie] Blackmore was a part of that. It felt very cool.

Clearwell Castle in Gloucestershire, where the album was written, was supposedly haunted. Did you see any ghosts?

There’s a famous story. Blackers and I were the first two to arrive. That night, as a gag, he rigged my wardrobe with speakers to emit all sorts of scary noises. He had a microphone next door and was going: “Whoo whoo”. We did have a couple of séances, but I didn’t see any ghosts, though I know the place was haunted.

When did you last talk to Ritchie?

Face to face, it would have been a long time ago. But we never had a falling out. He did ask me to join Rainbow six years ago. The night before I was leaving, Carole [Stevens, Blackmore’s manager and mother-in-law] called to say they had found a singer who also played bass. I had wanted to go to New York and have lunch with Ritchie, look him in the eye and give him a hug, but I didn’t fancy playing bass behind an unknown singer… again. So I didn’t go.

He also mentions that the upcoming Black Country Communion album will be called Number Five.

Read the rest in Louder Sound.

Here’s Glenn at the first gig of his US tour in Vineland, NJ, on August 16, 2023:

Video clips courtesy of Greg Jenne.

A historical interview with Ritchie Blackmore and Cozy Powell from the same issue of Sounds dated July 24, 1976.

Blackmore swings the axe

Peter Crescenti dodges the blows

RITCHIE BLACKMORE harbours no love for rock ‘n’ roll journalists. As far as he’s concerned, most of them fall into two unflattering categories, those that are either “embittered people because they’re not up there” on the stage, and those that are “bored and being paid to do a job.”
The tension that’s developed between musician and writer has led to some very distorted portraits of Mr. Blackmore, and over the years, the moody man in black has done little, if anything, to correct or cosmeticise the image that’s been drawn of him in various rock journals.
I myself have put some faith in that bad boy persona. The first time I went out on the road with Purple a few years ago, there were two other writers present, and both were frantic to interview Ritchie. Believing, at the time, that meeting Blackmore alone in a hotel room was something akin to journalistic masochism, I respectfully avoided the competition for Ritchie’s time, and concentrated instead in developing a rapport with the other musicians of Purple.
The end result, after three days on the road, was that I hardly spoke a word to Ritchie, except for a polite hello, and vice versa. What’s more, I only saw the man about four times in those three days, and twice it was when he was playing to an audience. As you might guess then, I was quite surprised recently when Ritchie actually remembered meeting me, when we again confronted each other for the sake of SOUNDS.
“I wouldn’t like to be a critic,” Ritchie still insists, “in a way that it must be very boring. I’d hate to have to go and see bands, especially loud bands.”

Continue reading in My Things – Music history for those who are able to read.

Glenn Hughes seems to be in full promotion mode, and here’s another interview. This one touches upon his current tour, where he is playing Marks 3 & 4 Purple material.

MGM: It must be an exciting opportunity for you to re-visit some of the songs again for this tour, especially as you might not have played some of them in a while.

GH: I haven’t. I’ve been playing ‘Gettin’ tighter’ off of ‘Come Taste the Band’. But I love doing ‘Sail Away’ and stuff like that. And I put my spin on ‘Mistreated’. In general, people are loving the show and we’ve done a couple of runs this year already and it’s been a great success. I’m bringing it to the UK (my homeland), and I think all these shows are going to pretty much sell out.

MGM: You’ve played ‘Burn’ and ‘Mistreated’ over the years with some of your other projects including Black Country Communion, and some fans will remember you playing those songs at the Childline Rocks shows with Iain Paice one year, and the following year with Jon Lord. On this forthcoming tour, are you going to try and stay faithful to the versions on the original album or will you experiment?

GH: Well, over the last few years, I’ve been listening to ‘Made in Europe’ and ‘Cal Jam’ of course, and other recordings like ‘Live in Paris’ to take some of those arrangements from that. I don’t really do the album versions. I do the long live versions with Ian and Jon and Ritchie. So, it’s more inclined to be that route, more of a more musical endeavour. I’m not doing ‘A 200’, that’s the instrumental. We played ‘What’s going on here’ in Europe, but I’m not doing the whole album; I’m basically doing cuts from the album because they’re quite long. I’ve chosen the songs which I think will resonate with fans. I believe what I’ve done, is get the right material for this tour.

Read more in My Global Mind.

Blabbermouth has some quotes from Glenn Hughes’ appearance on the Trunk Nation radio show aired on SiriusXM on August 8. He spoke about the state of Black Country Communion, their new album and prospects for touring.

I was in the studio last week completing vocals. And Joe was there with me last Wednesday before I had to leave to go to somewhere up north. I finished the last vocal track last Friday afternoon at three o’clock. Now the album is in the hands of [producer] Kevin Shirley to — he’ll probably go back to Australia after Joe does the Hollywood Bowl tomorrow, and then the mixing process will start. I would imagine that the album will be out in the first quarter of next year.

It sounds like BLACK COUNTRY COMMUNION. There’s not too many left turns, there’s nothing happening that’s weirdly different. We followed a vibe of the first four albums, so it it’s an extension, but it’s really a progression, if you can call it a progression. Everybody’s playing out of their skin. The vibe in the camp has never been so friendly and fun. It’s a really, really great vibe in the band. And we had a great time at Sunset Sound [studios] in Hollywood. And I can’t wait for you to hear it.

If you go back 10 years when I wanted to… well, we all wanted to play more shows. And Joe has been very busy from the get-go of his career. What I want you to know, and I want everybody to know, that, of course, we want to play with BLACK COUNTRY COMMUNITY, but Joe’s schedule is crazy busy, and we all get it. Unfortunately, that’s the way it is. So my priority is playing my own music with my own band and doing what I need to do to have fun on my own.

Would I like to play some shows with Joe, Derek and Jason? Of course I would. I think everybody would like that. But what I can’t do is say we’re gonna do this, this, and that… I’ve done it before and it didn’t happen, so I won’t… I’m glad Joe has [said in a recent interview] he wants to do something like that, because I think we all wanna set some time out to do that, and we’re hoping that we can play in North America next year.

Thanks to Blabbermouth for the transcription.

Another historical article, announcing the dissolution of Deep Purple Mark 4. It originally appeared in the issue of Sounds from July 24, 1976.

Purple: the end

By Hugh Fielder

DEEP PURPLE is no more — officially. One of Britain’s longest running and most successful heavy rock bands have split up — as predicted exclusively in SOUNDS:
The announcement made this week by Purple’s manager Rob Cooksey says that the band ‘will not record or perform together as Deep Purple again’.
Purple’s singer, Dave Coverdale, in fact resigned from the group after their final concert in Liverpool last March but the news was kept secret until the other members of the band had decided on their future plans. Coverdale spoke this week of the pressures of staying on top in the ‘hypocrisy and falseness’ of the pop world. “Being on stage was nearly always great,” he said. “Purple make terrific music but off-stage I haven’t been happy for a long time”.

Continue reading in My Things – Music history for those who are able to read.

It’s Psychedelic Baby Magazine has a long(ish) interview with Nick Simper, published back in June 2022. It covers pretty much all of his career, from the early 1960s to this day.

Your career is really profound and it would be simply impossible to touch on everything, but let’s start at the beginning. How do you recall the very early years when you were playing in bands like The Renegades (1960–61), The Delta Five (1961–63), Some Other Guys (1963–64), Buddy Britten & The Regents (renamed Simon Raven Cult (1964–66))?

The early days were incredibly happy and exciting and I think I was extremely lucky to have so much fun at such a young age. I was still at school when I became lead guitarist of The Renegades. When I joined The Delta Five I was able to learn the business from slightly older and more experienced people which was a great learning curve! After a two year period with them I was beginning to find a musical direction and ambition which led me to leave and try to form what I hoped would be a better outfit. This did not prove to be easy as it was difficult to find a good bass player, whilst guitarists were in abundance, and most of them better than I was! This realisation led me to take on the role of bassist, which I found extremely satisfying. I considered Some Other Guys to be a great group, good enough to be professional, who were able to achieve great audience reaction and with a good future ahead. Sadly the band folded when I left to take my first professional gig with Buddy Britten and the Regents. This was a great offer that I could not refuse, as Buddy Britten was one of my all time musical heroes.

Continue reading in It’s Psychedelic Baby Magazine. Just remember: his advice on public health matters, unlike music, is of no consequence.

Meanwhile, on his own site, Nick continues to publish his memoirs Nick’s Story. It is now up to Chapter 24, ending in May 1969.

Thanks to Uwe Hornung for the info.

Speaking of Glenn, Metal Rules has an interview with him prepared during his recent visit to Finland.

On this tour, you’re only playing classic Deep Purple stuff, but when will we see a tour where you’re playing songs from your entire career?

You’re asking me extremely important questions, so I’m going to answer them appropriately. And honestly, I think with the legacy music with Purple, all songs by Purple, the whole show, maybe another 18 months. Maybe the end of next year. And then I would see myself doing a Glenn show, which would have solo music, Trapeze, Hughes/Thrall, Black Country Communion, but more Glenn Hughes. I’ve got 53 years of music to choose from. Maybe California Breed too. So there’s a whole selection of music that needs to be heard. I think a lot of people would like that. Definitely.

So are fans going to see you two [GH and Yngwie Malmsteen] on stage playing some Purple classics together?

Yeah. If you see, Yngwie and I did ”Mistreated” at the Marshall 50th anniversary party ten years ago, and he was great. Yngwie playing ”Mistreated” is incredible. The guy is incredible. So when you look at Glenn and Yngwie together, you would imagine there will be a moment when. But we don’t know. I would imagine something will happen.

Read more in metal-rules.com

Glenn Hughes will be a guest on THAT Rocks! podcast hosted by Eddie Trunk, Don Jamieson and Jim Florentine. The show will be streamed live worldwide on YouTube on Thursday, August 3, 2023 at 22:00 UTC, as well as available there for watching later. Continue Reading »