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Cannock’s most famous son
Louder Sound publishes an opinion piece Nine Glenn Hughes albums you should listen to and one to avoid:
Throughout his career Hughes has been equally blessed and cursed: respectively, with arguably the most distinctive voice in hard rock, and by drug addiction that saw him ricochet from one project to the next with no real cohesion or direction, although almost all were flecked with flashes of brilliance.
Impressively, even during his drug years, he contributed to landmark albums either as a fully fledged band member or bassist/singer for hire. Infamously, while touring with Black Sabbath, with his band due on an LA stage in a matter of hours, Tony Iommi couldn’t find the errant Hughes. It turned out that the elusive bass player wasn’t even in the state of California.
Continue reading in Louder.
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing
The choice of supposedly vital albums ain’t bad though I am in two minds about California Breed. Andrew Watt has developed into a notable producer but he wasn’t on par as a a guitarist with people Glenn had played with before – or after. Glenn draws so much attention on stage to himself that he really needs a flashy guitarist as a counterweight. Watt, an able guitarist, was no guitar hero.
And as usual when Glenn is being discussed, it’s 9o% about his singing and colorful life while his remarkable bass playing – which got him hired by DP and playing on Joe Satriani records – is largely omitted.
With the exception of Play Me Out and California Breed, all his many solo albums (while they are not all works of genius, there isn’t really an appalling failure among them either, he was more or less consistent in quality) are strangely ignored. I think that Feel, The Way It Is and First Underground Nuclear Kitchen somehow belong among his top albums too. I know, I know, most of you would like to see Seventh Star there too. 🤨 😝 (I never liked Fused when it came out initially, but I changed my mind comparatively recently about it – it is a fine album even if it dallied with Nu Metal which generally doesn’t do much for me.
I’m totally alright with the bashing A Soulful Christmas gets, seasonal albums are always tricky, but Glenn’s rendition of Christmas standards was totally overcooked. 😂
October 3rd, 2026 at 15:08Some albums I had a hard time to appreciate but,as ones sometimes does, I developed an acquired taste for them because they re all part of the DP family.
Like Lord and Blackmore made me open myself for classical music due to Glenn I ventured off into old soul, Marvin Gay,Steven Wonder.
Maybe my willingness to funk a while was already there.MK2 already funked, and I loved Mothers Finest already in 1978.
My favourites indeed include 7th Star and FACE THE TRUTH, his collaboration with John Norum.
Aside from that more than enough later solo albums or work with BCC set the bar quite hight.
I had a lot of trouble with California Breed and his last one.
Whats worse was his last tour seemingly his final chapter on stage, of which I hoped for a totally different setlist.
GLENN was capable of so much but he didnt listen to loyal fans complaining some of his vocal parts acrobatics ruined an otherwise great song.
And if you do a BURN tour with someone like Soren plus good hammondplayers and a drummer that came close to Paice I expext you not to omit several tracks from that killer album, incl A 200 and Coronarias Redig.
For decades STORMBRINGER was his classic and in the end no anniversary tour of it, ditto CTTB but I reckon he read the roon somehow, knowing what the loyal DP fans seemed to want.
He was extremely productive since 1990 and possibly there s a shitload to listen to things he did and I never really got into to.
October 3rd, 2026 at 22:04a banal list
All the solo albums from the 90s and 2000s are missing.
Face the Truth and Seventh Star are also missing.
They never manage to produce a decent in-depth look at the Purple family.
October 4th, 2026 at 00:29Another one to avoid: “Blues”. Not bad musically, but lyrically it sucked, he tried to force his religious beliefs on his fans.
October 4th, 2026 at 02:55Whenever Glenn restricts himself to playing just “straight” AOR or just “straight” heavy rock (for which a lot of people love him), I feel he is not quite sincere about it and going though the expected motions a little. It’s only when he gets the funk out, that I see and hear the full, undiluted Glenn. And that basically only happened with Trapeze, Play Me Out (a bit of a Trapeze album by any other name), Feel and F.U.N.K. (and maybe a little with Hughes Thrall). None of these albums were great sellers however, so you have to forgive Glenn to remember once in a while which side of the bread slice is buttered for him.
To his defense: With his Mk III revue he played as many or even more titles off the Burn album than the real Mk III ever did. Ritchie steadfastly refused Sail Away as part of the live set and didn’t want it as the slated single off Burn either. A mistake I think, but maybe Ritchie disliked DC’s baritone vocal on it, who knows? In interviews he said that he had written the song as sort of an answer to Stevie Wonder’s Superstition as played by Beck, Bogert & Appice wanting to prove that he too could come up with a riff just as funky, but somewhere along the way he must have lost heart, maybe the slower tempo of the song wasn’t to his liking either, he always preferred Purple to play faster tracks live..
October 4th, 2026 at 06:23@4: How does an artist “force” something on a listener? If one dislikes something they hear on a record, don’t listen. Which I guess you don’t, but I don’t see the need to accuse someone of trying to “force” something down your neck.
October 4th, 2026 at 08:33I for mine don’t really like the BCC albums after the first 2, the debut was fantastic but it wore down afterwards.
October 4th, 2026 at 11:49Outstanding is a live Album Glenn recorded in Australia i think, a stripped down affair, so called semi acoustic, feeling and voice are both outstanding
I’m with Frater, Glenn did become a bit evangelist for a while. I understand that coming out of addiction he needed something to latch on to and living in esoteric LA-LA-Land probably didn’t help matters either, but it was a bit much. Not exactly forced, but messianic. With the exception of Judaism, a familiar trait among desert origin religions, isn’t it?
Let’s say Glenn saw himself as a loudspeaker for savior ideologies for a time – to his credit, he has scaled it down in recent years though it still permeates most of his lyrics. But then maybe it is just me, my life is more enlightened by hearing about chance encounters of real people in airplane seats and general questions of ping pong propulsion than airy christianized New Age wisdoms of fortune cookie level.
October 4th, 2026 at 13:52Yes, they played a lot of the album.
Which was brave.
Lay down, stay down got played
But indeed no Sail Away, one of my favourites, but also not the 2 instrumentals and whats going on here,also one I love.
I dont remember BLUES as as a zealotsalbum regarding religion but yeah, FROM NOW ON did that a lot.
So much I was confused when he was foulmouthing in 94 at Vlietpop.
A festival where the alleged headliner the Damned cancelled.
GH could play a much longer set.
But without Highway star which ON THE SAME DAY in Germany where he also played.
I just encountered an old upload I never saw.
Where is the rest of the show?
I never saw this, only BURN.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xc99IvpbKac
Someone standing next to waiting in line for the doors to open in Zoetermeer once gave me his phonenumber, he wanted to give me the whole shows audiorecording.
I lost the number 🙁
October 4th, 2026 at 15:28On the never ending list of surprises.
Never saw this.
Think its sounding different than the known official release and probably longer.
I forgot if it ever was a 2 cd.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2litiqH1ac
October 4th, 2026 at 16:20Fla76 @3, you are absolutely right. The Purples usually get very short shrift in that publication. Glenn Hughes has a huge catalogue from the 1990s and 2000s….many of those albums are far superior to what’s on Louder’s list. In fact, given Hughes’ prolific career and a massive number of solo albums as well as a plethora of collaborations with other artists, the magazine could have easily done a top 20 for him. Either they went for the obvious choices due to being unaware of Hughes’ substantial body of solo work (top drawer offerings such as Addiction or Soul Mover certainly should have gotten a mention at least), or they chose to ignore those. Either way, that’s par for the course at Classic Rock Magazine -aka- Louder which should really be re-christened “LEDDER”, the Zeppelin fan boy rag that it is. If they put in half the effort at researching and writing about Deep Purple as they do the drooling, fawning adulation of the ZOSO and company; The Purples would be in almost every issue.
October 4th, 2026 at 21:36I have issues seeing Glenn without a bass in his hands or at least a guitar.
And I question the wisdom of him always returning to the Mk III/IV stuff (DC never did except towards the end of his career with the Purple Album and Tour) – rather than forming a funk rock band and sticking to it for once.
Being inconsistent in his aspirations is the story of Glenn‘s career: He loved Trapeze and had the most prominent role there, free to basically do what he wanted, yet left them for the lure of filthy lucre from Purple. Acceptable for someone in his early 20s you might rightfully say, but it has become a pattern since then. Never really sticking to asserting himself at what he does best (and where his heart lies), but instead all these collaborations with people that lack a decent funk background: Moore, Iommi, Norum & Europe, Italian and Bulgarian melodic rockers, Bonamassa, The Dead Daisies, when what he should have really done is get some funky players with a hot horn section and persevere in establishing himself as a white RnB artist.
I would have liked to hear Glenn form a band with someone like Nile Rodgers though their joint coke consumption would have likely blown all record company budgets! 🙈
https://youtu.be/eA9KcMln0rw
Or a joint album/tour with someone like him?
https://youtu.be/twa3oiqOdOE
And what would have really been interesting for me is to hear Glenn incorporate his singing, bass playing and songwriting talents into a more experimental, boundaries-tearing-down project with some current rap or hip hop artist – Glenn with Eminem or someone more LA like Snoop Dogg if you like, now that would have been something …
https://youtu.be/rseqmSGH7xk
It’s not that Glenn’s legacy is full of junk, his presence and participation even elevates mediocre stuff, but his career is very much one of unrealized possibilities. I think he is in his deep, deep, deep element when he does stuff like this:
https://youtu.be/wDjNgkFiJYE
https://youtu.be/xm5Z9dXAUZI
October 4th, 2026 at 23:33@ 8 : « my life is more enlightened by hearing about chance encounters of real people in airplane seats and general questions of ping pong propulsion»
— what do you think ? It has no connection with China !
October 5th, 2026 at 08:14“people that lack a decent funk background:
Moore, Iommi, Norum & Europe, Italian and Bulgarian melodic rockers, Bonamassa, The Dead Daisies”
For now only reacting to this first part of your comment.
I know very well where your frustrations comes from.
Seeing him not making up a definitive mindset on going into mostly funk while he often proclaimed to go for it NOW!
The work done with the names mentioned above where often the ones where he restrained himself.
Omitting the parts that many people, fans as well,wanted to climb into the curtains and also often felt terrible about.
No matter what,he kept doing it,espescially live. already with DP on stage.
Many of us kept ourselves going to the shows because the rest was so very good.
By now its too late to try REALLY to do all these other things, though I keep hoping to see him come back.
October 5th, 2026 at 13:04I sometimes think that Glenn’s incessant drawing attention to himself came from not being able to unleash his funk side in a band and be commercially rewarded for it. If he had been in something like Mother’s Finest, maybe he would have been happy just playing funky bass and doing his RnB repertoire of vocal impressions?
He has never really recorded two deeply funky albums in a row, it was always a scattershot approach. And all his record companies basically wanted him to service his rock clientele.
It’s not that the rock & pop-only stuff he did with other people was crap, it wasn’t, but there’s a myriad bassists who sing that can perform conventional rock and AOR credibly, yet only one Glenn Hughes.
I agree that it is too late now in any case. We don’t even know whether he will make a return to stage work.
October 5th, 2026 at 18:57#10 RockVoonne:
If I remember correctly, on the Burning Japan Live album, three-quarters of the musicians are from Europe (who, if I recall correctly, played on From Now On).
#12 Uwe:
I simply believe that, starting the supergroup saga with Black Country Communion in 2010, he saw that it was far more profitable than his solo albums.
Up until 2018, he also made numerous guest appearances for various artists and on tribute albums; he was a very trendy name.
I also really liked The Way It Is, with its funky sound and a few dance samples.
Glenn was set to make a great funky album with his friend Chad Smith, he was the right drummer for him!
October 5th, 2026 at 22:02The Deep Purple familytree triggered me to explore into
a wide/ eclectic range of styles in music.
I d love to know what % of people originally starting as a fan of mostly fast and heavy rock music followed the same urge.
For decades we ve been discussing our frustrations about setlists and directions we wished it would go into.
Glenn thinks, I saw it yesterday ….”TRAPEZE might ve been as big if not bigger than DP if he hadnt jumped ships out of financial gain and signed with the LED ZEPPELIN label.”
We can only guess now.
BAD COMPANY did sign but never became as big as for instance ” The Holy Trinity”.
Glenn muttered but had to conclude he was better off commercially serving for his loyal rock/DP fans
Glenn remained an acquired taste, thank you deep purple fans,and like Steve Morse not able to reach a wide audience on his own.
Jon Lord on his own did do better,I think, when he finally chose to follow his heart.
But then the devil took him from us.
Like Glenn and others getting old he still had so much in his head….
Choices…
October 6th, 2026 at 15:09Deep Purple in its various line-ups led me to Classical Music, Blues, Funk and, yes, even Renaissance Music (or more accurately: Ritchie’s and Candice’s diluted DISNEY-definition of it). The Concerto and Sarabande were my first albums with an orchestra, Play Me Out my first funk one, with Cobham’s Spectrum I included jazz rock/fusion for the first time in my (then still modest, I was restricted by Taschengeld circumstances!) record collection (and there it stood, right between Status Quo’s Blue For You, Sweet’s Give Us A Wink, KISS’ ALIVE and Alice Cooper’s Greatest Hits, older “serious music” aficionados would fish it out and look at me questioningly! 🤣) and without Ritchie I would have never heard of Tilman Susato and would probably still think it is a Japanese dish, it does sound a bit like Tilapia Sushi, doesn’t it?
That Swan Song (Zep’s vanity record label) would have pushed Trapeze to greater heights and fame is typical Glenny hyperbole – everything about Trapeze (and I really love that band and own all their stuff, not just the albums featuring Glenn) had “cult act” written all over it. Comparisons to Bad Company (which can barely be described as a hard rock band, they certainly weren’t heavy rockers like Zep, Sabbath & Purple) are pie in the skies, Rodgers’ ear-pleasing songwriting was closer to CCR than Trapeze! 😂 I love Glenn as a singer, but his voice is nowhere as endearing to most people as Paul Rodgers’ middle-of-the-road organ.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WU9xvoqCIOc
(Incidentally written by Simon Kirke, the drummer, not Paul Rodgers or Mick Ralphs.)
Even if Trapeze had continued with Glenn, I doubt whether they would have ever reached the status of, say, UFO, Thin Lizzy, Nazareth or Uriah Heep, we’re talking more like Budgie (a fine band in its own right, but without any mainstream appeal).
That’s nothing against Trapeze, but they were never a commercial sounding entity. Glenn has never been in the charts with a single song he sang – KLF’s freak hit What Time Is Love? excepted.
Frankly a mix of rock and funk tends to be a hard sell because the fan camps are so divided, think of Mother’s Finest, Living Colour or Dan Reed Network, loved by critics, but smashing commercial success eluded them all (not for lack of quality of their music I stress!). Of course, the Red Hot Chili Peppers are the exception to the rule, so what do I know! Yet even their success came decades later than Trapeze, at a time when rhythm-oriented black dance music had been making inroads with white rock culture for a while – thanks to in no small part also the Nu Metal movement.
October 6th, 2026 at 16:32I think he explored funk as much as he could, short of joining Earth, Wind and Fire? Play Me Out is pure Glenn but I don’t think it’s what the promoters go for, hence GHPCDP. “Feel” another highlight, full of soul and r&b. Not sure if there was more to say? The FUNK album certainly didn’t improve on those two.
October 6th, 2026 at 20:25Isn’t Glenn a lonely child? If so that says a lot, looking at that from hindsight in regard to his attitude and career. Think about it, shorter attention span as in impatience etc, likes everything to go his way, doesn’t suffer fools gladly, etc etc. Not the complete picture but surely his genetic upbringing has a fair bit to do with his ‘all over the place’ career. Not everyone gets the ripe green apple from the tree. Glenn has done ok all things considered. Is he frustrated, he could be, who really knows other than himself and close friends, family etc. Do fans have too high an ‘expectation’, yes indeed, but many of us do in regard to certain things in life, music included. Anyway, he has survived to this day, many don’t and that isn’t even taking into consideration his hedonistic lifestyle back in the day. Cheers.
October 6th, 2026 at 21:41I forget about the Bad Company comemnt in regard to the above comments. They had the quality songs, Peter Grant ain’t no fool. Paul Rodgers and Mick Ralphs were a really good foil for each other. They were rather big too, commercially speaking. Uwe is correct, Trapeze were never going to get that golden opportunity. The songs and the fortitude were missing, if that is a way to put it. A stable lineup says something too with that ‘straight ahead’ rock blues approach. Cheers.
October 6th, 2026 at 21:51I was openminded,a bit, about Glenns words because I regularly read he played for huge crowds in the USA with Trapeze.
I LOVE Bad Company and regret not to have been able to witness a reunionshow.
I d have had to travel to Germany, and by then a pattern had instilled itself :
Looking seriously after my finances.
The last time I skipped the rule was travelling to Belgium to see Over the Rainbow .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjRArcJLrI8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWfiY1WIljM
They also did a show overhere but Uden for me is far and unpractical since I dont own a driverslicense.
So without a ride I probably d have skipped it since De Pul s brother in Zoetermeer didnt take them on.
https://www.youtube.com/live/NTs2MdQatiU
Another dittie alike the recent uploaded STILL I M SAD
Daisley, Stone,Powell,…..Blackmore, DIO
Its late and I think I thought it was something which it isnt?
October 6th, 2026 at 23:13https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQmguiXBZwo
Oh wow, RV, both the Over the Rainbow gig and the isolated Daisley bass track you posted are really precious, bedankt!
I have to say, as a Rainbow tribute, OTR were quite something! I never saw them, but certainly would have, but they weren’t in my neck of the woods at all.
October 7th, 2026 at 22:43Yup, Glenn is a single child, but so was DC, wasn’t he?
October 7th, 2026 at 22:45He didn’t get the job with Earth, Wind & Fire after the audition because he was “too rock” for them, though they were mightily impressed by his pipes.
That said, I think it would have been excruciatingly difficult for EWF to introduce a ‘whitey’ into their line-up. Much as Glenn’s love 💕 for Black Music is sincere and deep, I believe the Black Community would have given them hell along the lines of “We have so many people of our own who’ve been dying for a chance like this and you’re handing it on a plate to some Limey guy who played and sang with Deep Purple?!” 😂
October 7th, 2026 at 22:57Trapeze in the early 70s did have somewhat of a status in the US (certainly more than in the UK or Continental Europe where I am not aware that they ever even toured), but only in certain pockets, Texas being their mainstay. The were managed by the same people as a then still fledgling ZZ Top and often toured with the (then not yet) bearded ones in the South of the US. The live pic on You Are The Music … is from a gig in Memphis, Tennessee, for instance.
https://www.datocms-assets.com/38007/1633379883-seo-trapeze.jpg
Billy Gibbons must have liked Mel Galley’s style a lot. 😎
https://youtu.be/cDUZvLytQWU
https://youtu.be/7wRHBLwpASw
But being a convincing live act – and I’m sure Trapeze were if an improvisational trio playing rhythmic accentuated rock is your thing – and translating that into record sales are two different things.
October 8th, 2026 at 17:15I thought ZZ Top were around about the same time, laying it down Uwe. The advantage of course was they were locals, if you know what I mean. Don’t forget Grand Funk Railroad had already established that high octane rock thing too. Maybe the Yanks were looking for something a little more off centre at that time, a little different, who knows. The British invasion, if we go by that ludicrous saying, was a little earlier and then became a leviathan by the early 1970’s. Good composition and also something a little ‘different’ perhaps, was what the bands that made it had. All in hindsight and I don’t blame Hughes at all for joining an established recognised band like DP. What better ‘break’ for someone attempting to get inside that circle of ‘rock’ music, in that part of the world at that time. Cheers.
October 8th, 2026 at 22:19It was the absolute temptation for him, I don’t have issues with his decision either. From Purple’s side it was a bit folly though to lure someone who considered himself a lead singer who also plays bass into DP to become the bassist there who also sings some lead lines. That was asking for eventual trouble.
You’re right, the Yanks have always had a thing for honest, slightly sweaty rock power trios: early GFR, West, Bruce & Laing, Beck Bogert Appice, Triumph, Robin Trower … Trapeze might have slotted into that as a midlevel stadium live act.
October 9th, 2026 at 10:56Uwe
Did you just say that black audiences can be bigots as well?
Mothers Finest were like SANTANA not mindphucked in that department, everyone mingling.
IMHO Corey Glover should take up the mic when Gillan retires.
October 9th, 2026 at 13:40Black audiences have stereotypes and fears as well, we all do. The issue is how you handle them. Making Glenn Hughes the frontman of Earth, Wind & Fire would have not gone down well in some quarters I fear. Unlike Eminem who found his place in Rap and Hip Hop culture as a white kid (with suitable trailer park credentials and from a Black City like Detroit), he wasn’t even American.
Mother’s Finest were popular in Continental Europe after their iconic Rockpalast appearance because we didn’t have that, segregated radio. But in the US MF never attained the status they deserved because they sounded too white for Black Radio and looked too black for White Radio. And with each new album record companies would either tell them to be more Funk for Black Radio or more Rock for White Radio. No one let that poor band be just what it was: a cultural and musical melting pot.
I don’t in any way agree, but there a members of the Black Community who think that Hendrix doesn’t belong in the pantheon of great Black music artists because he largely accommodated a white audience. It’s nuts.
October 9th, 2026 at 18:22I always try to follow peoples ideas.
But naming EW and F,GH and a rap infected whitey is a far stretch.
I m not a fan of EWF but I think they re highly qualified musicians.
You appearantly give styles like rap, hop hop. etc all the Jon Lord nonsense : ” Its all music.”
https://www.essence.com/celebrity/wynton-marsalis-rap-music-damaging-robert-e-lee/
I m not always consistent because raplike vocals here and there got tru without making me vomit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hh6U8S_aJvc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvyFsMVNOig
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGd8_QxkcrM
October 10th, 2026 at 22:41