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Accidentally knighted
David Coverdale appeared on The Totally 80s Podcast to talk about power ballads et cetera.
No. I can’t retire from music; it’s oxygen to me. I’ve got at least three to five years of projects planned. As soon as we finish this thing, which is planned for, to celebrate PURPLE later this year [‘The Purple Album: Special Gold Edition’], we’re gonna start working on the farewell DVD, farewell album from the last [WHITESNAKE] tour. And the band was spectacular. I don’t know whether you saw, I had a beautiful woman called Tanya O’Callaghan I got from Steven Adler on bass — just a breathtakingly beautiful, talented woman. Why I haven’t had a woman in WHITESNAKE before, I will never know. But we had Dino Jelusick, two keyboard players, two guitar players. Tommy Aldridge is the equivalent of six drummers. And the places and the audiences, it was all very emotional. So I think we’ve captured that on the recording and the video stuff for people who could not make the actual shows. It’s gonna be a very defining thing… On the British tour of last year, we used a huge production. It’s gonna be a selection of WHITESNAKE stuff from the beginning to the end. It’s pretty cool.
I’m soon to be talking with my band about the idea of a farewell WHITESNAKE studio album and to invite some former members to participate to make it more complete — Adrian [Vandenberg] perhaps, Doug Aldrich, see if they would wanna come in. Michael Devin — all people I adore, and to see how it would go. But I think rather than just farewell to this current chapter, it’s farewell to a lot of guys that have been involved. It could be interesting.
I’ve got [WHITESNAKE guitarist] Joel [Hoekstra] coming in soon and see what music he has there. These guys are really inspiring to me. I’m not interested in trying to do it on my own. It’s a collaborative band thing. I see the big picture. I want the best for all of them.
Thanks to Blabbermouth for the info and quotes.
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing
Huh?
For me the definition of a power ballad is easy: It’s a mostly halftime-played and/or sung soft verse song with an anthemic, uplifting, power-chordy chorus (more often than not in a major key). That is why When A Blind Man Cries, Soldier of Fortune, This Time Around, Rainbow Eyes, Coast To Coast (Trapeze) and Only Women Bleed (Alice Cooper), Styx’ Boat On The River, Chicago’s If You Leave Me Now or the Scorpions’ Still Loving You are not power ballads (just ballads) and this stuff here all is:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_uh8XjgLTE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z92bmlcmyq0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HshQidqYxjg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNqATBMH6IM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i28UEoLXVFQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Cw1ng75KP0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4RjJKxsamQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yaVyQS1T7TY
It’s a hit songwriting recipe alright, but not one that I particularly mind, it’s catchy and can grip you emotionally in the right circumstances. And the Yanks generally did it best.
October 17th, 2023 at 20:40Snakes are delightful? Whaaat? To David? Really only his own one between his legs then – as he alludes.
It’s well-known that the man has a reptile- and especially snake-phobia (quite unlike me!) and that he just froze when he had to do those promo pics in 1977 for his debut solo album when they photographed an obviously terrified DC with a sizable live python or boa, his discomfort leading him to look into the camera cross-eyed (as he himself remarked later on, not wishing to relive the incident in any shape or coil). He must have wiped all those pics, they don’t seem to be available in the web anymore.
Maybe the snake just didn’t like the fact that he wore one of its dead relatives as part of his snake skin applications leather jacket for the photo shoot! “That’sss my mum!” it hisssssed …
October 17th, 2023 at 21:17My gosh, I just wasted almost an hour of my life straining the few interesting parts from this sea of grandiose banality. One hour can be long and the redhead didn’t really help getting to the heart of things.
A farewell Whitesnake live album from the aborted tour? That’s gonna need some patching up in the studio, someone call Glenn quick.
October 17th, 2023 at 23:17Dear Uwe
My female part of the family gave me a list of DC ballads and blues (I advocated for “Mitreated” on my side, but it didn’t pass).
It’s going
Is This Love
Looking For Love
Forevermore
Love is Blind
Ain’t No Love in the Heart of the City
You Keep on Moving
Sailing Ships
Blindman
Take Me For A Little While
Summer Rain
Easier Said Than Done
Soldier of Fortune
Only My Soul
Ain’t Gonna Cry No More
All I Want All I Need
One Of These Days
Don’t You Cry
Your Precious Love
The Last Note of Freedom
Lonely Days, Lonely Nights
Time and Again
Till The Day I Die
The Gypsy
River Song
Behind The Smile
Now You’re Gone
Don’t Fade Away
Too Many Tears
All I Want Is You
PS
October 18th, 2023 at 16:53Womens lead, theirs is crucial..
DC has done his fair share of lovely ballads and power ballads, but how could the mesmerizing Mrs Ivica not mention this one in her list?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGsVqr61VZ4
Go ask her and then —> report your findings here, pronto! You know how her omissions fall back on you. ; – )
PS: Nice list, give my regards!
PPS: I’ll never understand why that stellar track and performance by David & Jon (recorded in a small chapel with the organ there) was relegated to be a B side of a single and not included on the Slide It In album. It’s the best version of this track ever. Beats both the well-known Fleetwood Mac one
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtmW2ek7WkQ
and even the (still great) original!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFo7Z2fKTVk
October 18th, 2023 at 22:21That version of Need Your Love is simply breathtaking. The simple arrangement and David’s voice… wow. I read a comment once (on one of these forums) that Jon Lord contributed very little to Whitesnake etc. This song (and many others) suggests otherwise. I love it. So did Peter Green in fact.
October 19th, 2023 at 12:49I’ve received the Gold Edition of the WS Purple Album with DC’s audition demo songs and can now reenact (—> gropes for strong glasses …) being Ian Paice in 1973!!!
https://www.shutterstock.com/shutterstock/photos/1907781565/display_1500/stock-photo-heap-of-vintage-audio-cassettes-retro-music-concept-background-d-illustration-1907781565.jpg
“Ri-i-itchie, Jo-o-on, Gle-e-en, I’ve finally got something here worth a listen!”
October 19th, 2023 at 16:41@ 5 – “PPS: I’ll never understand why that stellar track and performance by David & Jon (recorded in a small chapel with the organ there) was relegated to be a B side of a single and not included on the Slide It In album.” Pretty easy that one Uwe, there is no way Coverdale at that time was going to include a ‘ballad’ without the crashing drums, loud distorted guitars & rumbling bass guitar on a rock album, especially as he was out of control with the image & ego etc at that time. Cheers.
October 19th, 2023 at 21:10@7 – Noticed how DC’s voice on these audition tapes is similar with the way he sounds on his two post DP albums (Whitesnake & Northwinds)?
Btw, there is a snippet of Only My Soul on DC demos/ideas for Stormbringer album.
October 20th, 2023 at 07:31Great minds think alike, Jean-Christophe, see my posts #15 and #16 in the “Problems piling up for þe olde ‘snake”-thread below.
This version of SoF (also contained on the Gold Edition double CD) is admittedly beautiful and well-sung in a mature (and largely studio trickery-untampered) way:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydBQGSoVIDc
It’s what DC should be doing going forward and a musical environment where his voice still deserves to be heard and and can move a listener.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-YW3dmYZ_o
He can skip all the high notes for me – very few people sing deep as nicely and with as much calm authority as he does. Just get rid of all the background noise for chrisss(n)akes!
October 20th, 2023 at 17:15@10 – Very Sorry (and ashamed), Uwe, I missed these two posts of you. What you were writing is absolute pure gold. Seems there was a 1973-1977 hiatus in DC cursus. (But after all, this hiatus is MkIII & MkIV… 😉). White Snake & Northwinds stands like highlights in my listener life.
BTW: always a pleasure to read your posts (even those I miss 😀). Looks like you know *everything* about DP’world & people. Always smart, well written — and you never forget the smile. Thank you !
October 21st, 2023 at 10:19@10 and at Uwe’s immense contribution to our education: if I am not mistaken, I already raised this to you, Mein Herr, a few years ago: why let your great oeuvre lie wasted in hundreds of individual posts? Your subjective but insightful DP family tree biography would be a fantastic read. To me, for sure
October 22nd, 2023 at 06:56Thanks for the flowers 🙏 , but I hardly know “everything” about Purple and still learn new or at least unkown-to-me stuff all the time, inter alia from places like here. It‘s just that a lot of info has amalgamated with my brain over the decades and I‘m silly good at remembering trivia (and forgetting more important things) – I‘ve always had a fondness for the more arcane and exotic bits of modern history.
What possibly sets me apart a little is that I have a very comprehensive approach towards the Deep Purple universe and all its members. There have always been and will always be people who know more about Ritchie and Rainbow, but there are comparatively few people to whom getting everything from Nick Simper or Glenn Hughes was as important as having their Rainbow collection complete. I have this completist urge in things I take an interest in – no doubt a psychological condition, ole Sigmund Freud would have had a field day on his couch with me!
I’ve never had a favorite DP line-up to the exclusion of other Purple line-ups – of course Mk II is the most important one in shaping a sound and also lyrically most satisfying (lyrics, if they‘re good like Gillan‘s, are important to me) – but I‘ve always had a soft spot for Mk III and IV too, very likely because those were the active line-ups when I first became a fan. I bought my first four DP albums in the summer of 1975, they were Shades of, The Book of Talisyn (because they were both budget-priced), In Rock (because I remembered the iconic cover back from when my older brother had the record in 1970) and Stormbringer (because it was the most recent one back then). Of course, back then I had no idea about the different line-ups (but coincidentally still acquired pretty much the widest range of DP music imaginable), I just liked the name “Deep Purple“, knew they were popular (extremely so in Germany) and had heard SOTW.
If I‘m honest, the decision to spend my allowance on DP records rather than – as I had previously done – Airfix and Revell WW2 aircraft model kits was hormonally triggered: I had formed the empirically backed opinion (I did a lot of abstract thinking as a youth …) that most girls my age then (I was 14) weren’t all too impressed with a cupboard full of painstakingly hand-painted Focke-Wulfs, Thunderbolts and Spitfires 😂 and hoped a record collection might do better. Whether DP of all bands was the right choice to generate girls’ interest is of course open to debate, I really should have gone for Led Zeppelin 😝, but what a loss that would have been not following all those roots and branches of the Purple Kingdom over the last (nearly) half-century!
October 22nd, 2023 at 14:57@ 13 – “Whether DP of all bands was the right choice to generate girls’ interest is of course open to debate, I really should have gone for Led Zeppelin 😝, but what a loss that would have been not following all those roots and branches of the Purple Kingdom over the last (nearly) half-century”! Well Uwe at least your son got it right. I can just imagine him saying to you, ‘but dad, you got it all wrong old son’ he he he. Cheers.
October 22nd, 2023 at 20:45My son has also referred to DP’s music as “asexual” in comparison to LZ. I think DC would be really insulted by that!
October 22nd, 2023 at 21:57The Purple Album (Gold Edition) – well, you can’t polish a turd!
A final Whitesnake studio album – more ballads, ropey lyrics, too many notes in guitar solos, subtle as a brick drumming and over-produced as per, no doubt. As for getting past members involved? Probably no Neil Murray or Micky Moody as they aren’t interested in anything Coverdale related, which is fair enough after the way David has behaved in the past (once bitten and all that…).
December 7th, 2023 at 11:36