slow start

Apologies for the slow start to DTB’s 2024…  Simon has been flat out supporting a book of bizarre album sleeves he’s curated; published late 2023 this generated so much publicity it was hard to keep up – you may have heard his dulcet tones on Radio 4, Radio 5 and Radio Market Harborough! (He’s even been doing illustrated talks too, the next one is in Huddersfield on April 26th at the literary festival.)  We will put a link at the end of this page if you want to see what it’s all about…

Anyway, to the t-shirt, which just came to my notice. A real piece of 80s nostalgia, sold at the 1983 Reading Festival when the Ian Gillan fronted Black Sabbath and Thin Lizzy ruled the event, though they look more like characters from The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers to us.  There is a growing market for retro rock shirts but not sure this one would drive bidders wild!

Moving quickly on, those of you in a post-turkey dinner daze watching The Great Pottery Throw Down can’t have failed to notice them using snippets of I’m So Glad and Hush; clearly someone in the production company is a fan reckons Steve Clare, though his bet that they will get on to the full MIJ Space Truckin’ by the final seems a bit of wishful thinking.  Meanwhile pirate comedy series ‘Our Flag Means Death’ has reappeared and series two finds Blackbeard quoting Whitesnake lyrics in the 4th episode. Treasurehunter? Don’t Break Me Hearties Again? The Deeparrrr the Love… 

On to Purple; lots of questions about the upcoming Machine Head 52nd (!) anniversary box set but hey, it’s not for us (nor apparently were Simon’s sleeve notes, scratched from the release!).  This is the fourth UK CD issue of the album, but beyond an audience recording of a live show (which will probably be dumped FOC on Spotify later) and a few tenuous guest remixes, there is Nothing New on it At All.  So unless you have a 5.1 audio system, £85 burning a hole in your pocket and can’t live without the atmos mix then I’m not sure what the point is.  When I feel the urge for a blast of the album, it is always Roger’s 25th anniversary remix, it really says it all. 

There are other archive items competing for your inflation raddled disposable income too.  First up is a reissue of David Coverdale‘s The Purple Album, which sort of begs the question how long does an album have to wait these days before it gets the multi track box treatment? The cover does NOT sport an “Eighth Anniversary” sticker!  Anyway, to lure DP collectors into HMV (if you can find the CD shelves hidden behind the Japanese soda cans and vinyl dolls in there any more), DC has added some home demos made during his time writing tracks for Stormbringer, plus the legendary Fabulosa Brothers 4 track demo which got him that first audition with DP. Tracks on that are Everybody’s Talkin’; Get Ready; Lonely Town, Lonely Street; and Dancing In The Street.  Not really sure this is the right place for material like that but there you go. If you were a fan of the 2015 album itself then you can look forward to the usual endless array of audio remixes, behind the scenes clips, promo videos and live tracks from the tour. There is a double album version on gold vinyl (the original peaked at 87 in the Billboard charts) and the bonus material comes on a multi disc set with a bluray.  Be sure to check as not all formats contain the extras.

Next up was an interesting Trapeze collection. The band have been poorly served by a mish-mash of live collections and studio reissues in recent years (topped by those needle drop Cherry Red horrors), but here comes a CD of tracks rescued by Tom Galley from Mel’s own archive which he asked him to curate. The press info surrounding it doesn’t exactly explain what’s what very well, but it does look to be out-takes from across their career, including finished tracks which were left in the can.  Some will feature Glenn and others date from after he departed to join Deep Purple.  It is marked up as Vol 1 which suggests more to follow.

Also worth a mention is a reworking of a song called Rose In Hell, originally released on the Moonstone Project album back in 2006. This new version features Ian Paice and Glenn Hughes, plus Adam Wakeman on hammond. Sounds like a potential supergroup in the making!  You can preview it here

The song will be on the third Turkish Delight album, on UK record label Escape. It will lead on to a reworking of Moonstone’s debut album, again with Ian Paice on board (using the very same cowbell he had in 1973 for the Burn sessions. That is the attention to detail you expect from Moonstone’s Matteo Filippini!).

Talking of Wakeman minor, he also stepped in on keys with Deep Purple when DP played a show in India on December 17th.  Don was taken poorly and had to pull out.  Still, be interesting to hear what he brought to the set.

Otherwise it’s now down to us all waiting for Purple’s next studio offering which apparently isn’t that far off.  Finally, those of you on the DTB emailing list will get book updates shortly!

Thanks to Michael Richards, Tim ‘the pirate’ Summers, Mark Maddock, Martin Ashberry and Matteo Filippini for help.

 The Art Of The Bizarre Vinyl Sleeve by Steve Goldman and Simon Robinson. If you’ve not seen what all the fuss is (banned by Instagram!) then zoom over to:

The Art Of The Bizarre Vinyl Sleeve

and of course there are two pages of Deep Purple related grot in there!

A200 anyone?

Good to see Glenn Hughes is on the ball, preparing to tour in celebration of Burn’s 50th anniversary, albeit only in sunny Spain so far.  As sharper minds than us have pointed out (hi Tim), GH has in fact already played the bulk of the album on previous Remembering DP jaunts.  Still he rarely disappoints live so should be a good night out.  And maybe he will have a go at A200 to complete the set?!  Thanks to Steve Clare for the flyer. 

Daisy roots

Still wary of mixing it in crowded places ourselves but Glenn Hughes drew some of the faithful out earlier this month for the Dead Daisies visit, and John Tucker took a few nice images at the Bristol show on the 3rd. “The guitarist in the first frame is band founder David Lowy, and in the other shot is Doug Aldrich, of course one-time member of Whitesnake and Dio.”
Steve Grover went to the gig in London and treated himself to the CD after at the signing session but feels the poor scribbles have probably devalued it rather than otherwise!

Afterlife

People will very long memories may remember that Glenn Hughes was in the running for doing the original Ghostbusters film theme music back in 1983. He and musical partner Pat Thrall pitched their demo, which has just surfaced as an MP3 from Pat some 35 years on! It’s quite a strange thing to listen to, especially as it musically trundles along to much the same backing idea as the proper film theme. Tim Summers says this is because the producers got every artist on their list to use a Huey Lewis track called I Want A New Drug as a guide, as they knew this fitted the film sequence. Huey Lewis was apparently too busy doing Back To The Future to make his own pitch! Anyway, Pat and Glenn were one of some 50 acts who got rejected, and the gig went to Ray Parker Junior whose did turn in a cracking song. However someone had forgotten to tell Huey Lewis they were using his song as a guide and he promptly sued and got a pay-off in the end! According to Pat “The guy that mixed it had been awake for a week on cocaine. It is one of the worst mixes ever.”

ANYWAY, long story over, have a listen. There is a sort of Ghostbusters sequel due out any time with the original cast as guests. Looking forward to it.

on lead vocals

There have been so many releases based around the Phenomena project by Tom Galley I confess I struggle to keep up, especially with all the reissues thereof. But this latest CD might have a place on your shelf as it brings together all the tracks featuring Glenn Hughes on lead vocals (as the cover sticker clearly indicates!). So if you never investigated this is as good a chance as any. The disc is out now, and our thanks to Stuart Hamilton for the info.

DC and GH

Whitesnake have announced another set of reissues, we can do no better than to quote the publicity blurb: “(They) bring together some of their hardest-hitting songs of (their) multi-platinum career on The Rock Album, a new collection that features revisited, remixed and remastered versions of the group’s best rock songs. The album is the first release in the band’s “Red, White and Blues Trilogy,” a series of fresh, new collections organized by musical themes that will include: Love Songs (red), The Rock Album (white) and The Blues Album (blue). Pre-order ‘The Rock Album’ now on White Double Vinyl, CD and …” box set.
If Guinness Book of Records have a category for most recycled rock back catalogue then nominations are now closed. We are told that the “revisiting” includes new Hammond overdubs (on post-JL material) as well…

Glenn Hughes‘ first full track off the now delayed Dead Daisies album has been trailed on an animated YouTube vid – takes us back to those Old Great Whistle Test fillers! Great singing but not sure it has enough of a musical identity (or the visual theme is particularly appropriate at this time), although as with Purple you wouldn’t give away your best cut online! Talking of which, they’re promising another album teaser very shortly…

Thanks to Martin Ashberry and Tom Dixon

 

 

ITMA

Ahead of Rock Candy magazine (below), Glenn cropped up on another magazine cover just before Christmas, the altogether much better looking Blues In Britain. Blues you say? That’s exactly what I asked when author Nicholas John first approached me about doing the feature.  But he took a round about route, leaving aside the fairly well worn story of the bass player’s career in favour of an interview looking at Glenn’s relationship with blues music over the years.  And when you learn that Glenn had a school band called The Hooker Lees, you just know the blues had to figure. Anyway a nice feature all round.  So nice in fact, that Rock N Reel magazine have also run it in their January issue (albeit it dropping Glenn off the cover in favour of Peggy Seeger!).

Nicholas has also put the audio of the phone interview online at his YouTube channel, which you can listen to here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3i-jNfPFqh8

Coming right up to date, Glenn and his new project with The Dead Daisies is on the cusp as they say, and Mark Maddock spotted that they have posted a number of nicely shot videos online with clips from the sessions, etc. which give a good idea of what it will all sound like.

2 for 1

Very nice looking covers to the latest issue of the Spanish Deep Purple fanzine HUSH, it turns out that for a bit of fun they have sort of done two issues side by side, so you get two different covers, one showing Ritchie at his Rainbow concert there in Malaga, and other a great shot of Glenn from his recent Spanish tour.  These are written in Spanish but if you fancy copies for the den shelf contact Carlos direct via email – cadpurple1@mundo-r.com

Righteous daisies

After a week or two of speculation it’s been confirmed that Glenn Hughes has joined rock band The Dead Daisies (a sort of collective supergroup formed in Australia back in 2013 who already featured ex-Whitesnake/GH guitarist Doug Aldrich).  Glenn let the news slip during a live set at the Stonedeaf festival on August bank holiday weekend (which has had mixed reactions from fans, and was marred by long delays due to power issues). Glenn replaces both singer John Corabi and bassist Marco Mendoza in the band.  A new track ‘Righteous Days’ has already been recorded, and can be heard here

https://thedeaddaisies.com/rocktheplanet/?fbclid=IwAR0CTc5q7YYzDBwZrTjLiUFwge9CsI4ZGRXknj-SLDXaBzerQDi2v–vYmo

It is planned that a new album will be completed later this year and touring in support of it will commence next year.

Glenn has also mentioned in a recent interview that another Black Country Communion album may possibly perhaps happen in 2021.  Tim Summers.

New and old

Glenn Hughes’s promoters have been swift to reorganise his cancelled UK tour, with some dates rescheduled, and some alternatives where venues were not available.  Dates are on the 2019 concert diary page.  Thanks to Tim Summers.