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From the city hall to the county line
Louder Sound has a short feature on Whitesnake’s cover of Ain’t No Love In The Heart Of The City:
It was Marsden who brought the song to the table in the first place. He’d been hanging around at the offices of Anchor Records in Soho’s Wardour Street, when someone gave him a copy of Bobby ‘Blue’ Bland’s album Dreamer that the label had been involved in putting out a few years earlier.
Bland had been kicking around the music scene for years – he’d made his first recordings in the 1950s. Ain’t No Love In The Heart Of The City, his album’s opening track, had an undercurrent of soul-deep weariness beneath the relatively upbeat music, that immediately caught Marsden’s attention.
“I knew this would be a great song for David to sing,” Marsden remembered. “He knew about Bobby Bland, but I don’t think he was that familiar with the song. He could see straight away that he could stamp his voice on it.”
Read more in Louder Sound.
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing
I like the original ‘Ain’t no love..’ but I love DC’s way of singing it.
October 28th, 2025 at 11:18Sounds like genuine pain ❤️🩹
Always loved the live version on Live in the heart of the city album.
October 28th, 2025 at 12:17It’s a beautiful composition, somewhere in the no-man’s land between Soul and Blues. And the old WS certainly did it justice with that intro riff Bernie had – by his own admission – “loaned” from the Fab Four’s Come Together.
Quite a few people have covered it since then, always making a reference to Bobby Bland’s original version of course, but I have my doubts … Someone as conscious of his cool factor as a younger Paul Weller couldn’t just say he heard it first with a band as decidedly uncool (for Mods) as Whitesnake:
https://youtu.be/queEzxyomjY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CUKrUuK3J0
To be fair, Paul owned up quite recently to having been a Status Quo fan in the mid 70s, so he might meanwhile be more ready to admitting to closet-hearing WS back in the day too. After all he became friends with Jon Lord at the Jim Capaldi tribute concert where they both appeared. (Hence also the appearance of Paul at Jon’s tribute.)
https://youtu.be/Atb3lKZl2VU
(Jon and Paul play Here We Go Round The Mulberry Bush at 01:50:30.)
So now you’ve had today’s serving of rock trivia, roots & branches!
More on Herr Bland here
https://youtu.be/YpIv9prmHTc ,
Mick Hucknall (he of Simply Red fame or notoriety – I personally think he’s a good vocalist even if not everything from SR is quality grade) devoted a whole album to him, but eschewed covering Ain’t No Love, likely because he deemed it too obvious a choice.
October 28th, 2025 at 15:28More trivia:
Did you know that the 12” maxi single
https://de.rarevinyl.com/products/whitesnake-aint-no-love-in-the-heart-of-the-city-wos-uk-12-inch-vinyl-single-maxi-12bp381-1702
released with the Live In The Heart Of The City album at the time featured a version of the song with Paicey drumming?
https://youtu.be/yfiKl5h7AIE
Different to the older one on the double album which had Duck Dowle playing:
https://youtu.be/Lju10XoFOmg
The Paicey version is longer and has a more elaborate bass drum pattern in the audience sing-along part. When Cozy took over he however reverted back to the way Dowle had played it, I guess Little Ian’s pattern was too fancy pants for ole Cozy the Barbarian. 🤣
https://youtu.be/eUG9P2SHFss
October 28th, 2025 at 17:26@ 4 Very nice info Uwe, cheers!
October 28th, 2025 at 19:49As much as I admire Paul Weller in places for my liking it was, well: brave to tackle this song when BB and DC had done it before. Not his natural habitat…but bad it ain’t. Kinda like GH doing Mistreated… of course respectable…but…well, why?
The Capaldi tribute CD is a treasure to have.
Cozy did ok on Ain’t no Love but it’s nothing like Dowle and Paice…Tommy Aldridge butchered it.
October 28th, 2025 at 20:38I really like Paul Weller too, he has charisma in his voice even though he’s not technically a great singer – always a little flat, it’s his shtick, sort of like Ian Hunter or Chrissie Hynde. But on his own songs it works beautifully, especially when he’s plaintive like here
https://youtu.be/uma0WjecyKE
or doing angry young man rallying calls with a beautiful chick who can really sing:
https://youtu.be/k5HfOipwvts
On Ain’t No Love he is not better than so-so however. DC in his prime he ain’t and never was.
I think the “Tommy Aldridge Cyborg Series” is one of the best drum machines around! 😆
https://i.imgur.com/eQptquo.gif
October 28th, 2025 at 23:12Yes, there is an IP version of the song. I still wonder why the album doesn’t get a proper re-release – with all the songs that have been played. After all the live set is pretty popular in Europe and could sit well next to other reissues of that kind. And the missing tracks deserve a release, I got a bootleg of the 1980 show.
October 29th, 2025 at 21:03@8
Where do I buy such a bootleg thingy?
October 30th, 2025 at 09:09Do I need to know someone who knows someone who is neighbour to a shark?
😃
@9
Hello Karin. There os a website : http://www.deeppurplehub.com
Everything bootleg about everything Purple… good digging !
October 30th, 2025 at 12:26Not sure about the market now, Karin. Today everything moved to YOUTUBE I think. Back in the day I ordered bootlegs from some shady shops located all over the place, even Japan. And they did cost a fortune. Most of the stuff can be found online now for download. There used to be a Deep Purple hub where you trade stuff, don’t know if it’s still around.
See I even found something for you on YT… judging by the sound of my pc speaker set it is not the same quality as my bootleg but there you go. Maybe if it’s played on a proper stereo …
October 30th, 2025 at 13:51@10
Thanks Fernando 😊
I will dig the best I can 😃
October 30th, 2025 at 19:46@11
Thanks Max 😊
I guess the hub is the same as Fernando (@10) is mentioning.
You found something for me at YouTube? I would love to see it.
I’m happy to watch stuff at YouTube but I really prefer to have the goodies stored in my safe 😄
You know, if the Western world is conquered and all necessities of life, such as YouTube, is closed and forbidden, what will then bring me hope and happiness in my life? So I collect and store away, and hope my future self will survive 😃
Guess I better post a little song:
https://youtu.be/a5kwyHjL7ZU
I presume you have heard it before. But it’s never a bad time to listen to Dan 🤩
October 30th, 2025 at 20:08BTW I have a cracking version of Ain’t No Love by the fabulous Crystal Gayle!! You can find it on her LP These Days – released 1980. Her version rocks in at 3.50
November 2nd, 2025 at 10:23I never heard that, Richard, thanks for making me aware, it is a good version:
https://youtu.be/ceAJyoenRps
Though I have a hunch she might have heard the WS version first too! ☝️😎
November 2nd, 2025 at 17:42When Jon Lord was playing with the “Olympic Rock and Blues Circus” in the late 80s (with Pete York, Miller Anderson, Tony Ashton, Colin Hodgkinson and Chris Farlowe), I also saw them performing Ain’t No Love.
November 3rd, 2025 at 08:24Deep down in my boxes from the last move I still have a tape of this I guess (@Karin: the tapes were the little brothers of the bootlegs).
This version was rather different from Whitesnake’s but Chris Farlowe definitely gave it a face of its own
#16
There is also a fabulous version by Chris Farlowe & the Thunderbirds. Out of the Blue is one of my favorite albums by/with Chris.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66pTU1Qr7zo&list=RD66pTU1Qr7zo&start_radio=1
November 4th, 2025 at 08:09Yeah, Farlowe recorded a version for an album of his.
November 4th, 2025 at 08:26It certainly suits Chris Farlowe’ voice singing Ain’t No Love, he being a veteran from all those years ago with that style of music. He was a ‘guest’ vocalist on Jimmy Page’s two 1980’s records, the Death Wish II movie soundtrack and also a couple of songs on Page’s solo album, Outrider. Chris Farlowe in the Atomic Rooster band didn’t work for me. He has certainly been around for a long time and is a highly respected singer. Whitesnake’s version of that song, being a little more in the rock/blues vein suits my ears better. However that blues gospel soul originality of the song is where it truly does belong. Cheers
November 4th, 2025 at 21:32That sounded great!
November 4th, 2025 at 21:58Let’s not forget the ‘ great late’ Bernie M’s version on his last LP – Working Man?? No pun intended but this version a tad ‘ workman like’? God Bless Him. Nice he went ‘full circle’ and recorded the song? Cheers PJ
November 5th, 2025 at 07:31