Ted the McKenna

Very sorry to learn of the death of drummer Ted McKenna today.  Ted was the drummer on Ian Gillan’s Naked Thunder solo outings during the “between Purple years” in 1990. He also played with Michael Schenker, Rory Gallagher and many others but for me and other older fans, Ted will probably be most fondly remembered as a pivotal player in The Sensational Alex Harvey Band during the 1970s.  So it was great to see Chris and Ted back together on that Gillan tour (indeed they did say it was one of the main reasons they took the job!), and I well remember the show at Doncaster Dome… Neil Murray says he was with Ted only a couple of weeks go as they all met up to remember Cozy Powell.

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Phenomena trilogy

UPDATE : John Tucker tells me the new CDs slack all the bonus tracks which turned up on previous editions, not sure why!

The first three Phenomena albums, the brainchild of Tom Galley, have been reissued, I think this is the third time they’ve been re-released. But if you haven’t picked them up before, then now’s your chance. The first one features Glenn Hughes of course, alongside Cozy Powell, Mel Galley, Neil Murray, Don Airey and Ted McKenna, who all have mostly lengthy connections to the Purple family tree (Ted worked with Ian Gillan on his solo project). Glenn also turns up on Phenomena 2 but had jumped ship for the third disc. There are new sleeve notes and a remaster for all three discs. The press release does not give a label, but the music is now on iTunes.
CD suppliers? We tend to recommend https://www.keymailrecords.com these days, as they play fair with suppliers and everyone and can order most titles.

Toys / Pram

Deep Purple have been dragged into the five year saga of boy band singer / Happy Shopper Frank Sinatra Robbie William’s planned basement pool extensions which neighbour Jimmy Page has gone to court to try and stop, fearing they will damage his Grade 1 listed property next door (see below; nice).  There are now allegations that Williams has been blasting out hard rock rivals including Deep Purple and Black Sabbath to annoy Page.  Nobody seems to have checked the story out so it could just be some web prankster stirring it up.  Even so, the pair have probably spent more in court costs than you or I would earn in a lifetime, but I did like the council report allowing the work to go ahead provided it is done by pick and shovel!  Boys. An annual discount ticket for our local pool is only £20…

Finland off

That Finnish show I popped up here has been dropped; my fault for trying to catch up on 700 back emails and not checking properly!  The New Year; malware on Ann’s laptop to sort, then her second monitor went down…  any more of this and I’m off to the loft to dust down the Amstrad PCW!

Down a place

Hands up if you remember the Dutch arm of EMI issuing Child In Time as an A- sided 7″ single? The sleeve (shown here from Simon’s collection)) was decorated with Dutch charts to show the track had been Number One in the Veronica Top 100 for three years since 1972. Amazingly the equivalent chart for 2018 shows the track is still high in the annual listing, although it has slipped one place from last year, down from 5 to 6.  The tracks keeping it down were Bohemian Rhapsody and Hotel California at 1 and 2 again, then Piano Man by Billy Joel (how strange is that!), Stairway To Heaven and Wish You Were Here.  The chart also picks up Smoke On The Water (at 119) but you need to go to 1380 to find the next entry, Black Night.  I’ve no idea how these are compiled any more, clearly not physical sales, but however they do so it’s good to see the track is still well liked by one of European neighbours. Thanks to Tonny Steenhagen who sent me the info.  The story of the track is told in great detail in the Deep Purple In Rock history Wait For The Ricochet (just in case you haven’t bought the book yet!).  And of course 2019 marks the 50th Anniversary of DPMk 2.  I did try to hire Hanwell for an event but sadly they cannot allow any more than 200 people in the function room, and there is no guarantee that the rehearsal rooms we’d wish to see will not be occupied by judo classes!

Remembering Jon

There was a fascinating concert in Athens, Greece the other week (Nov 16) done as a tribute to Jon Lord’s music. With a big orchestra backing, they performed the three movements of “Concerto…”, “Sarabande” and an encore of “Hush”, “Lazy” and “Child In Time”.  In some ways this points the way to how Deep Purple and Jon might be part of the world’s musical heritage in decades to come.  You can read a review of it on the Greek rock site rockpages (in English!). My thanks to Sakis Nikas for the details.  And what a fab ticket design too!

 

Date updates

More concerts shaping up for 2019; one or two we have touched on before but this brings us up to date! All these are logged on our 2019 tour date page on the site.

The concerts include a lengthy tour by tribute outfit Purpendicular with Ian Paice manning the drum kit, lasting through much of February and March in Europe. Still nothing for the UK! Deep Purple by the way found a number of dates on their Mexican tour previously announced cancelled at the last minute. Donald Trump probably expected them to move up and invade America by the back door…
Ian Gillan is also filling in the break in Deep Purple touring (which as we noted before seems to have been scaled back this last couple of years) with a dozen or more shows under the Rock Meets Classic Tour heading (now in the tenth year), again all in Europe. Well all in Germany except one!
The continuation of the Glenn Hughes Does DP tour (inspired by Debbie Does Dallas?) is also booking up with the second leg of the UK during May, but also a couple of showcase gigs in New York in April and then in Germany in September. It has been suggested that Glenn tried to use the current Deep Purple typeface logo on his publicity but was told to stop, so his name is in this style instead!
Meanwhile David Coverdale gets the chance to road test his all-new titanium knee joints (we’re all getting to that age it seems) across America in April / May 2019 with whoever is in Whitesnake this week, before eight shows in Europe, of which the only one in the UK is the Download Donington festival in June.
Then last up is another batch of shows from Don Airey and Friends through March.  I had heard that Roger Glover might be planning some shows as well but no news on that just yet.
A huge thank you to our special tour manager Lutz Reinart for bringing us up to speed as usual! Lutz was also a big help on the German edition of the Deep Purple In Rock history which is finally out.

Dates

We mentioned Rainbow’s tour dates a few weeks ago; these have now been confirmed with just four shows in Europe for 2019. I guess this does mean there might be more in Russia or the Far East. Anyhow, the dates are on our 2019 diary page now.  The flyer for the Finland gig is shown below.

Communication breakdown?

There has been a lot of speculation online about Steve Morse’s future in the group this past few days, sparked by an interview he gave with an online site, Rock, Roots and Blues. The report was not especially well phrased and the writer did seem to suggest Steve was preparing to leave and had even suggested replacements! Such was the chatter that Steve felt he needed to clarify the situation the other day:

RRB: “So Steve, are you leaving Deep Purple after this tour is over? I was under the impression that you were saying that to me the other night.”

SM: ”Well, I guess I’m not the best communicator! I thought that this tour, billed as the long goodbye tour, which I did see on one of my shirts, would be the final Deep Purple tour, but now it might not be?
I want to be on stage playing with the guys for the final show whenever that is. I plan on playing until I can’t play anymore or can’t play well enough for my own standards given how many people pay to come out and hear us, but, given the ongoing progressive problems (osteoarthritis) in my wrists, the writing seems to be on the wall. I am learning a fourth style of playing so that I can continue to do what I love, but the music that we play with Deep Purple may not allow me to continue. I’ll know when it’s time. Deep Purple is planning to record another album soon and the plan is for me to be there with them.”

So the long farewell tour may be longer than perhaps was anticipated by some and we may get a new studio album before too long. I do find it amusing that Steve is getting his updates from the tour shirts, but let’s hope that he gets his wish and if he does decide to call it a day they handle it better than previous band departures. Quite a few people have commented on what Steve calls his ‘fourth way’ and feel it works really well within Purple, and I have to say the grungier harder edge certainly worked for me the last couple of times I’ve seen them.

Thanks to everyone who helped on this story!

HMV specials

HMV have issued a number of special edition vinyl represses this year again (you may recall the marble vinyl In Rock from last time) to mark the BBC supported National Album Day. The one which may be of interest is a coloured vinyl issue of Rainbow Rising in their shops now (not online).  My thanks to Russ Berger for the heads up via Mark Maddock.