![[hand]](/hs-pics/portraits/hands/morse7.jpg)
![[face]](/hs-pics/portraits/faces/mcbride6.jpg)
He kept his pants on
BraveWords reviews the Graham Bonnet Band show at the Landis Theater in Vineland, NJ, on May 10, 2025.
Tonight was the last night of a short US run. In addition to the music, Bonnet proved to be a good storyteller, often with a dose of self-deprecating humor, relating tales about certain songs and/or his time with other bands. Despite complaints about his hearing and eyesight, at 77, he looks to be in good health (his voice is!). The silver hair is combed back, no longer in the customary flattop. Nor is he wearing a suitcoat, but the tie is still there, along with orange canvas sneakers. While he fakes robotic motions, he mainly stays center stage, between two wedge monitors, but plays off paramour/bassist Heavenstone and engages in horseplay with the guitarist.
Read more in BraveWords.
[Update May 15]: here’s another GBB review with pictures, this time from a gig in New Bedford, MA on May 9, 2025.
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing
Graham is the most laddish singer/frontman in the Purple Family. I love him for it.
May 14th, 2025 at 18:22Flash thought (I have lots of them): Wouldn’t that be a great new product for the Graham Bonnet Band’s merchandising stall: “Graham’s original Assault Attack ‘fly-jumps-right-open’ -jeans”?
Free Willy!
May 14th, 2025 at 18:46We saw the GBB in early May and they were quite good. He sang very clear and strong, guitarist was talented and a new man on the keys to go along with solid drumming and his GF bass player. They opened with 4 songs from Down To Earth and then into his vast catalog of catchy tunes. The guitar and keyboard solos were wrapped nicely around a cool version of ‘Lazy’ and then encored with Lost In Hollywood. The GBB put on a very enjoyable show and played their hearts out even if the crowd was small. Marco Mendoza opened and played a set of about 8 tunes including Ted Nugent, Thin Lizzy and a Beatles tune (no Whitesnake) he’s a good story teller and showman!
May 15th, 2025 at 10:18He’s an excellent bass player (Marco is) and his first solo album sounded like a modern version of Glenn Hughes’ Play Me Out to me.
GBB are indeed a bit of a “famous songs Graham has sung”-hit revue (I’ve seen them twice), but they deliver their stuff with aplomb and of course his no-holds-barred singing style is a freak phenomenon of nature.
May 15th, 2025 at 12:36@2
Use, “free Willy” is too cheap here, come on. Graham did better than that.
Let’s bring the mushy peas on!
All…
Night….
LOOOOOOOOOOOOOO…..
*Cozy Powell THUNDER break*
May 15th, 2025 at 12:53And riff….
😆😆😆
I just put “Free Willy!” in so Karin wouldn’t be too puzzled again and ask René for elucidation, Thorsun. I’m tailoring my messages to my audience!! 😎
May 15th, 2025 at 15:27So you intend to say, lieber Thorsun, that Cozy had a percussive ejaculation?
https://media1.tenor.com/m/9YxXIwzzMIUAAAAd/j-geils-band-centerfold.gif
You Scandinavians have the dirtiest minds, I must say. I’m horrified + aghast. All that Highway Smut oozing from these pages.
May 15th, 2025 at 16:58@6
“I just put “Free Willy!”
Isn’t it this:
https://youtu.be/xk0XY83eEuM?si=6QQWzIaX05XAMzg6
The rest of the stuff you’re mentioning I pretend as I have no idea what is!
May 15th, 2025 at 19:39I mixed this up with the King of Dreams discussion. There’s another song on that JLT DP album which starts, “You know my willy’s broken”. It’s dangerous for your body parts, that S&M.
May 16th, 2025 at 06:17Yes, Karin, Free Willy! is a film about an orca(sm)! 😎
“You know my willy’s broken” 😂, oh, so that is why the song title contains “… hurts”! And then Joe even sings “it gets so hard to handle” … – as one would, ouch!, imagine …
May 16th, 2025 at 11:31@10
EEEEDIIITH!
EEEEEEDIIIIIIIITH!
COME GET YOUR MAN, and bring his straitjacket, he is getting weird again 😄
May 17th, 2025 at 06:29No where near as direct as Jethro Tull’s “Kissing Willie” song from 1987. Karin, avert your eyes now!
Breaking hearts in a market town.
She eats filet of sole and washes it down
With sparkling wine.
Nice girl, but a bad girl’s better.
Qualifies in both ways to my mind.
But now she’s kissing Willie.
She shows a leg shows it damn well.
Knows how to drive a man right back to being a child.
Well, she’s a nice girl, but her bad girl’s better.
I can read it in her cheating eyes and know that in a while.
Well, she’ll be kissing Willie.
(My best friend, Willie.)
Willie stands and Willie falls.
May 18th, 2025 at 06:11Willie hangs his head behind grey factory walls.
Well, she’s a nice girl, but her bad girl’s better.
Me and Willie just can’t help come, when she calls.
Now she’s kissing Willie.
(My best friend, Willie.)
@ 11- Ha ha ha, Well done Karin. Also for the comment ‘the only torture I could inflict on animals would be to read out aloud some of Uwe’s comments’ something like that. A real beauty that one. Cheers.
May 18th, 2025 at 06:37Correction regarding the Tull song ‘Kissing Willie’, that is from the 1989 Rock Island album, not 1987. Just in case anyone thought that that was the song for Tull winning the Grammy in 1987. If it had been, maybe Metallica would have been in a more jovial mood and not so pissed off. Cheers.
May 18th, 2025 at 06:45@12
Well MacGregor, I’ve often wondered why parents give their boy such an easy-to-be-misunderstood name!
This song, with Sweet:
https://youtu.be/NM6I-pmV0RA?si=m2OJk00qOmpBjeqr
If you ask me, I find that name to be quite a challenge for such a boy!
May 18th, 2025 at 10:19@13
😂😂
Thank you!
But the honour goes all the way to Uwe, because he makes it so easy 😅
May 18th, 2025 at 10:22You guys and your rivers of lyrical smut!
Can’t we have some wholesome poetry with tuneful music for a change?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUq_T_Bhau8
Hey there, people, I’m Bobby Brown
They say I’m the cutest boy in town
My car is fast, my teeth are shiny
I tell all the girls they can kiss my heini
Here I am at a famous school
I dressin’ sharp and I’m acting cool
I’ve got a cheerleader here
Wants to help with my paper
Let her do all the work
And maybe later I’ll rape her
Oh God, I am the American dream
I do not think I’m too extreme
And I’m a handsome son of a bitch
I’m gonna get a good job and be real rich
(Get a good, get a good, get a good, get a good job)
Women’s liberation
Came creepin’ all across the nation
I tell you, people, I was not ready
When I fucked this dyke by the name of Freddie
She made a little speech then
Oh, she tried to make me say when
She had my balls in a vice but she left the dick
I guess it’s still hooked on but now it shoots too quick
Oh God, I am the American dream
But now I smell like Vaseline
And I’m a miserable son of a bitch
Am I a boy or a lady, I don’t know which
(I wonder, wonder, wonder, wonder)
So I went out and bought me a leisure suit
I jingle my change but I’m still kinda cute
Got a job doing radio promo
And none of the jocks can even tell I’m a homo
Eventually me and a friend
Sorta drifted along into S&M
I can take about an hour on the tower of power
As long as I get a little golden shower
Oh God, I am the American dream
With a spindle up my butt ’til it makes me scream
And I’ll do anything to get a head
I lay awake nights, sayin’, “thank you, Fred”
Oh God, Oh God, I’m so fantastic
Thanks to Freddie, I’m a sexual spastic
And my name is Bobby Brown
Watch me now, I’m goin’ down
And my name is Bobby Brown
Watch me now, I’m goin’ down
And my name is Bobby Brown
Watch me now, I’m going down
Yeah, I knew you’d be surprised …”
May 18th, 2025 at 12:46I do often wonder how Frank Zappa had a record contract at times. However it was the mid 1960′ through to the 1970’s and record companies were much more lenient back then. Censorship, what censorship. Can you imagine that song in today’s world? Cheers.
May 18th, 2025 at 22:53@ 16 – no worries Karin, as long as we keep him looking over his shoulder all the time and also walking on thin ice, then all is good. Regarding that Sweet song, thanks for that ear worm, I can’t get that out of my head no matter how many other songs from other artists I play in an attempt to drive it away. Still, at least it didn’t’t give my already consumed coffee a reason to think twice about staying put, unlike that Zappa song Uwe went. My already consumed coffee almost did a u turn upon hearing that. Cheers
May 18th, 2025 at 23:32@17
I seem to remember Uwe, that you’ve been moaning about the lyrics of Rat Bat Blue!
Shame on you! RBB is PURE innocence compared to that song you so uninhibited have shown in here!
What about the sons of Max? You’ve told me they’re reading the stuff in here, maybe you ought to find more eatable lyrics!
This one is a superb song:
https://youtu.be/JoMCip83GZ4?si=QuvgIa_oZ26J5KON
Good and wholesome lyrics about to be on time, something you can never learn too soon! 😅
Or this one:
https://youtu.be/ESdogL0Muhw?si=oSH-gtDwxqoi_0eH
Where the youngsters learn about the dangers of the dark 🤓
May 19th, 2025 at 05:53Thank you for worrying about my sons’ innocence, Karin – but I am afraid you’re a couple of years late. They do know that song and Tillythemax is much more of a Zappa devotee than I am.
May 19th, 2025 at 12:50You will not believe me, but Max can confirm: Zappa’s Bobby Brown went to #4 in the German singles charts in 1979, it was everywhere! And while most people had a hunch that the lyrics were a bit risque in places, it was him that laudably introduced the English terms for adult recreational pastimes such as “tower of power”, “golden shower” and “spindle up my butt” into many Germans’ English vocabulary. Those things weren’t taught in school, you know.
And it’s a tuneful song alright. 😁
Karin, are we now listening to Sparks or what? Here’s another one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMmoTU7lPKE
Thanks for the D-A-D vid!
May 19th, 2025 at 16:19@21
“Thank you for worrying about my sons’ innocence, Karin”
– aww you’re welcome ☺️😉
“but I am afraid you’re a couple of years late”
May 20th, 2025 at 04:07– what!! I blame Uwe for this (don’t exactly know why but I guess he has something to do with that 😄)
@22
“Zappa’s Bobby Brown went to #4 in the German singles charts in 1979, it was everywhere!”
– with bowed head I have to admit that I also, in my somewhat wasted youth, sang along to this song, but I certainly didn’t understand the lyrics (neither did my mum apparently or she would have washed my mouth with detergent 😝)
“Karin, are we now listening to Sparks or what?”
– yes, as the guard of decent music in here, I take my chores very seriously, listening to all the links with a clean conscience and open heart (well, semi-open ☺️) and if you really need to know – they’re not half bad!
Thanks for the link!
Re DAD, ain’t it sweet that Stig sings in the beginning? Jesper does have the power voice, but Stig sounds so youthful in this.
May 20th, 2025 at 04:18@19
“thanks for that ear worm”
– you’re welcome!
Sweet have a special place in my heart, they were so dynamic and brilliant, at least in the beginning!
May 20th, 2025 at 04:27(Not like Purple! They just seem to keep the music flowing from an endless stream of genius 😍)
Gentlemen, this gem:
https://youtu.be/R8uhYe40Vks?si=h3ymqF6AB7-3rAKc
Is it a tango?
May 20th, 2025 at 06:02True. Bobby Brown did more for us than most English teachers ever could!
May 20th, 2025 at 06:15I remember that teacher of mine – around that time – that told me I had used the word ‘kids’ all wrong ….as it meant little deer only and had nothing to do with human children whatsoever…
@22 I think it even went to #1 in Norway! It was regularly played on radio here in Sweden, even though we only had state-owned public service radio at the time. Still is played, on classic rock stations.
May 20th, 2025 at 07:55@27
…as I always have said: real knowledge are found in life…
Except arithmetic: this has to be taught within the walls of education 😉
May 20th, 2025 at 09:40Karin @26, it certainly is tangoish – good call! -, just a bit fast perhaps.
Also tangoish:
https://youtu.be/rKGeTz-_G3A
And who could forget this little gem:
https://youtu.be/FHzCbjNmgYs
May 20th, 2025 at 14:01@30
Uwe, Slade – “Cuz I love you” – I would have categorised that one as a stomper.. but man I dig the violin!
And Noddy’s voice is sweet as sweet can be!
The last link: well, now I really wanna learn to do the tango!
May 20th, 2025 at 16:20This lady is adding the Tango an sufficient amount of insanity to make it real fun 😄
Now I just need find my sweetheart and convince him to dance with me 🥰
You didn’t know Lisa Dalbello, a Canadian singer-songwriter (and nebenbei bemerkt Nena’s voice coach)? She had her 15 minutes of fame in the 80s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-e-lZekd2Y
and ‘Tango’ was medium-sized radio and dance hit in Germany. Sehr talentierte Frau. Bit too demanding for US radio though.
But Alanis Morissette sure took a close listen.
May 20th, 2025 at 20:42@32: Dalbello’s last album “whore” is easily on my top five albums of all time. Heavy, evil, wonderful!
May 21st, 2025 at 08:14https://youtu.be/Yz3HPH3d-LI?si=IQmoHGWY6H84m0Tb
@3
“You didn’t know Lisa Dalbello, a Canadian singer-songwriter (and nebenbei bemerkt Nena’s voice coach)? “
– no I didn’t.
She reminds me of another singer, a female with a very dark voice, (and she looks a lot like her) but even if my life was depending on it, I can’t remember her name!
In my head I can hum her most known tune, but I guess you can’t hear it? ☺️
Alanis Morisette, well she has always reminded me of a girl who soooooo much wants to give the felling of danger, (just like Avril Lavigne) but not much in my opinion.
To reformulate it: Alanis still plays with Barbie dolls, compared to Dalbello who obviously plays with knives 😄
But do you then know this lady: (yes of course you do!)
https://youtu.be/qA4BXkF8Dfo?si=B-ytYUyazt2Cc_1D
But man, she can break my heart over and over again!
And deep down her beautiful voice is danger, hurt and sorrow placed side by side.
But what a woman! 😍
Of course ‘Strange fruit’ is AMAZING!
Thanks for the link, she really gives this vibe of complete insanity 😂
May 21st, 2025 at 09:06@21
May 21st, 2025 at 10:33Devotee would be said a little too much, as I own and know only a few of the dweezillion albums that man has released. But indeed, Bobby Brown was my first contact with Mr. Zappa too (apart from him being mentioned in that Smoke over some lake-tune some of you might be familiar with), and btw still is a decently well-known song amongst people my age (even to ones who aren’t spending half of their free time digging into the back-catalogue of musicians three times their age).
The lady Lisa Dalbello is an interesting character. I have no knowledge of her music or who she is. It seems she appeared as a lead vocalist on one song on Alex Lifeson’s ‘Victor’ album back in the mid 90’s. I used to own that album and didn’t like it so I traded it in. So I suppose I have heard her sing one song way back then and forgotten about her and of course didn’t even know at that time who she was. Reading some research and she has been around a long time and has worked with many high profile artists. The ‘whore’ album has a few dark themes and dystopian styled songs and that song about The Revenge of Sleeping Beauty is a good one. A very familiar Eastern theme running through it that is sort of similar to the Page and Plant ‘No Quarter’ music. I wonder who did that first as both albums are from the same year. Interesting indeed and Dalbello hasn’t done any more of her own music since that album, now being involved in production etc. Always interesting to hear a different artist, especially if they are not mainstream and tread a different path. That song eLeVeN is interesting too. Thanks for the link. Cheers.
May 21st, 2025 at 11:56@35
“some lake-tune some of you might be familiar with”
Well, I know a lot of young people, and a lot of those, I’m sorry to say, have never heard SOTW!
So I’m impressed with you and all the other young people who do!
And I take it as my personal responsibility to make the kids, who prefer pop songs or rap or whatever, know what real good music is 😊
May 21st, 2025 at 13:45Tillythemax, you ought to make your dad very proud 😊
My children moan when they hear the SOTW riff and roll their eyes when they hear the intro to this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L397TWLwrUU
And when this plays, they mock me and say to each other, feigning interest:
“Did dad ever tell you how Francis Rossi himself spoke to him directly from stage in 1977?”
“Naw, I’ve never heard that story before, go tell!” 🤣
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_MT_m90eq8
I will disinherit them, both.
May 21st, 2025 at 22:19@38
“I will disinherit them, both.”
Well, I wanna hear every little detail if you put me in your testament 😄
May 22nd, 2025 at 08:04