Posted by Nick on Monday, September 9th, 2024,
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That band, “It’s a Beautiful Day,” is still around, with only drummer Val Fuentes still in the group. Vocalist David LaFlamme (who also played violin and rhythm guitar) died last year. Pattie Santos, who also sang, died in 1989, as did keyboardist Fred Webb. A couple of the other originals or early ’70s members bounce in and out of the band.
Just listened to “Bombay Call” … it’s faster than Purple’s rendition. DP’s is better, but It’s a Beautiful Day’s version is pretty good.
wow, this is probably the first time I’ve heard Ritchie praise Big Ian’s work so much!…
even “extraordinary”!
There is a lot of nostalgia inside the Man in Black, and it couldn’t be otherwise, both because of the passing of time and because of how their lives have inextricably intertwined in the history of Deep Purple and in the history of rock music.
I cannot resist & Uwe, control yourself. “Gillan said, no I want to do it again”. Just curious, was that while he was still ‘under’ the piano or when he had finished his take? It is fine line indeed. Cheers.
On behalf of the DP family, thank you very much Candy Night. The DP family has a gray eminence, and a much more beautiful woman than the Beatles (JO) or Black Sabbath (SO) in the end and she is the performer. I think she has the most merit for these stories. Ritchie is so vertical in his stories, an interesting storyteller.And let the stories continue.
“Child in Time”..what a rock epic!…in the top five of all time on my list…with “Shine On You Crazy Diamond”,Bohemian Rhapsody,”Layla” and (I hope Herr Uwe “won’t be angry”:))” Stairway to Heaven”
It was a great source of irritation when people used to mention this to Jon Lord. He always used to brush it to one side.
This is a class act of RB to mention this and to credit IG for his work on the adaptation of this song.
BTW I wish Led Zeppelin were classy enough to admit that they stole the opening line of stairway to Heaven from another band.
Mind you they would have paid millions in compensation as they never shock hand with the people who claim to be their idea
Peace ✌️
The song Ritchie is referring to as “Hard Road” from It’s a Beautiful Day is called Don and Dewey. In 1972 covered by Dutch band Alquin and produced by Derek Lawrence. There’s a nice link.
Your juvenile, crypto-sex obsessed mind never ceases to baffle me, Herr MacGregor. My take is that Ian’s search under the piano was strictly musically motivated, he heard trumpets blow.
They likely envisaged a horn arrangement for Child In Time.
Fla76, Blackers has heaped praise on Big Ian before, around the time of THOBL he did an interview with Kerrang! where he said (I paraphrase from memory): “Rainbow went through many singers, but we never found an Ian Gillan. No one sings like Ian Gillan, his voice is big enough to fill a stadium. And I love his stage raps, like when he tells some story to a Japanese audience about a football team called the Rangers from Perfect Street – the Perfect Street Rangers – and the Japanese dutifully take notes, probably to look for a street sign from Perfect Street!”
yes, I remember, at the time of THOBL Ritchie said that he really liked Ian’s voice on that album and that he judged it to be very warm and rounded.
but I don’t know….these compliments made now 30 years after 1993 seem less formal to me, almost a sort of awareness on Ritchie’s part despite the disagreements that we all know well
they should not admit only Stairway to Heaven!
apart from the covers (which people often don’t know are covers, a bit like our Hush), led zeppelin have plagiarised a lot of their most famous songs, to list them all we’ll be here until tomorrow!
@2 Ritchie has said, in the past, that “Gillan was a fantastic singer in the early days.”
However, Blackmore didn’t like it when IG couldn’t hit the high notes on songs like “Child in Time” – figured it was largely due to excessive partying. Much of what Gillan croons today sounds better than the late 1980s/early ’90s Purple stuff. Strangely, IG’s voice sounded crisp on solo discs like “Accidentally on Purpose” and “Naked Thunder,” the latter of which I think is underrated. “No More Cane on the Brazos” and “Nothing But the Best” are stellar tracks.
And how about the “Toolbox” album James? Have you heard this one? IG had 46 years back then and it was his one last Big Hurrah going for his TOTAL voice. Title track, “Candy Horizon” and especially coda to “Don’t Hold Me Back” have these spine tingling banshees for the one last time, toa godly effect. Not to mention the fact that the album is one of the hardest rocking (if not metallic) records in whole discog of Purple tree. “Don’t hold me BAAAAAAAAAA*****!!!!!!”. I will love it forever, might as well be he was the only singer who had this range at this age (excluding here Glenn who had the range, but never this much of control and finesse on his banshees). Those of Gillan are exciting, primal but perfectly exquisite in the context of the raw power of these songs.
I once asked Roger Glover how they solved the copyright issue on these two tracks. He said – very simple. The publishers easily agreed with each other and the topic never came up.
What is it with that constant Led Zep bashing here? They were a fine band with socially aware, non-escapist lyrics, a very accurate lead guitarist, a singer with a warm masculine voice avoiding all histrionics, a nimble and light-footed drummer skipping weightlessly across the beat plus that other guy with the fluid piano and organ solos and prominent-in-the-mix bass on their dry echo- and reverb-sparse recordings. Not to mention an exquisite taste in not too mature female companionship.
I HATE it when they don’t get the credit they so richly deserve, stop it! Whole Lotta Love has some of the most elegant chord changes ever and Stairway To Heaven is an exercise in succinct, original songwriting eschewing any pretentious fluff.
For all his not so great traits, Ritchie does have one thing not: a long memory for past grievances or disagreements. And for all his positive traits, Big Ian has a memory long enough to circle the equator and then some.
I think Ritchie is physically well behind the point of being able to play live with DP again (unless someone else plays rhythm and riffs, but Ritchie could still solo), but it has long been time to bury the hatchet. Ian could play congas (a little and just lightly!) on the next Blackmore’s Night album.
in general Gillan in the 80s didn’t take care of his voice, Blackmore is partly right, and everyone in MKII is partly to blame because if you really care about your singer and you have social relationships everyone would tell him in chorus ad nauseam “hey Ian you’re ruining your voice and you sing incorrectly, it’s time you seriously go to a speech therapist and take singing lessons to set your voice correctly again to make the notes you could do in 1972”
Gillan probably didn’t care at all, it was in the last years of the Ian Gillan band that he started to sing badly and he carried this with him into the following years.
then with Toolbox and TBRO he fired his last cartridges, and then he started to take more care of his voice and then he changed his way of singing because he could now reach the high register for short high notes in live performances.
but then this was all compatible with the age that is still increasing, and that’s fine, Big Ian’s voice in his new dimension of the last 15/20 years is very beautiful and gives emotions in the same way.
of course Geoff Tate or Michael Kiske can still reach very high notes that Gillan couldn’t reach at the same age, and probably when they’re 78 they’ll be able to reach higher than Gillan, but the vocal setting and the care of the voice was different.
however, apart from Glenn who still has an incredible falsetto (but which he never connects with his chest voice), there isn’t a singer around from the 70s who can hold the notes he held back then…maybe only Sammy Hagar is still better than Ian.
I would love to hear what Steve Perry can do now, but I don’t think he’s sung for many years now.
The Zep were fantastic musicians, they made history in the Olympus of hard rock, they were pioneers and created a very important trend that then reached the Guns’ Roses and Glam.
they wrote legendary songs too. but they also did their beautiful plagiarisms, they are not saintly composers as many especially outside here think, here.
Coming back to our boys, do you think it’s impossible to see in the future even a photo of Ritchie and Ian together for a handshake and a smile?
LZ were doing the same as what many others were doing, in rehashing redeveloping their favourite tunes, or at least elements of them within the new sounds found in electric guitars, bass’s & keyboards. There’s nothing wrong with that, & if they hadn’t of done it, we’d likely have never heard of the original tunes.
People simply get upset when there’s $$$ involved, & when the tunes are still making money 50+ years after their release, yet alone the “original” release dates.
There are worse culprits I think, but it seems that court-fees end-up being impressive amounts too.
I could listen to Ritchie tell stories about DP, and Rainbow, all day long! Yes, it was around the time of the TBRO album that Ritchie praised Ian in an interview. I wonder if those 2 realized just how Great they were together, or if the MKII line up realized the same thing!!
![[hand]](/hs-pics/portraits/hands/morse8.jpg)
![[face]](/hs-pics/portraits/faces/glover.jpg)
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing
That band, “It’s a Beautiful Day,” is still around, with only drummer Val Fuentes still in the group. Vocalist David LaFlamme (who also played violin and rhythm guitar) died last year. Pattie Santos, who also sang, died in 1989, as did keyboardist Fred Webb. A couple of the other originals or early ’70s members bounce in and out of the band.
Just listened to “Bombay Call” … it’s faster than Purple’s rendition. DP’s is better, but It’s a Beautiful Day’s version is pretty good.
September 9th, 2024 at 21:09wow, this is probably the first time I’ve heard Ritchie praise Big Ian’s work so much!…
even “extraordinary”!
There is a lot of nostalgia inside the Man in Black, and it couldn’t be otherwise, both because of the passing of time and because of how their lives have inextricably intertwined in the history of Deep Purple and in the history of rock music.
September 9th, 2024 at 23:06I cannot resist & Uwe, control yourself. “Gillan said, no I want to do it again”. Just curious, was that while he was still ‘under’ the piano or when he had finished his take? It is fine line indeed. Cheers.
September 9th, 2024 at 23:13A gentleman’s agreement then.
I’m happy for Jon that he made friends so easily.
September 9th, 2024 at 23:29Love it!! Of course Ritchie doesn’t mention his brilliant guitar solo!
September 10th, 2024 at 07:16On behalf of the DP family, thank you very much Candy Night. The DP family has a gray eminence, and a much more beautiful woman than the Beatles (JO) or Black Sabbath (SO) in the end and she is the performer. I think she has the most merit for these stories. Ritchie is so vertical in his stories, an interesting storyteller.And let the stories continue.
“Child in Time”..what a rock epic!…in the top five of all time on my list…with “Shine On You Crazy Diamond”,Bohemian Rhapsody,”Layla” and (I hope Herr Uwe “won’t be angry”:))” Stairway to Heaven”
September 10th, 2024 at 09:53It was a great source of irritation when people used to mention this to Jon Lord. He always used to brush it to one side.
September 10th, 2024 at 09:55This is a class act of RB to mention this and to credit IG for his work on the adaptation of this song.
BTW I wish Led Zeppelin were classy enough to admit that they stole the opening line of stairway to Heaven from another band.
Mind you they would have paid millions in compensation as they never shock hand with the people who claim to be their idea
Peace ✌️
Thought you would be interested in this video. I agree with her comments on borrowing the riff from It’s a beautiful day.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrCmLyt6EgU
September 10th, 2024 at 12:01The song Ritchie is referring to as “Hard Road” from It’s a Beautiful Day is called Don and Dewey. In 1972 covered by Dutch band Alquin and produced by Derek Lawrence. There’s a nice link.
September 10th, 2024 at 13:42Your juvenile, crypto-sex obsessed mind never ceases to baffle me, Herr MacGregor. My take is that Ian’s search under the piano was strictly musically motivated, he heard trumpets blow.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0sR9oYfcxc
They likely envisaged a horn arrangement for Child In Time.
Fla76, Blackers has heaped praise on Big Ian before, around the time of THOBL he did an interview with Kerrang! where he said (I paraphrase from memory): “Rainbow went through many singers, but we never found an Ian Gillan. No one sings like Ian Gillan, his voice is big enough to fill a stadium. And I love his stage raps, like when he tells some story to a Japanese audience about a football team called the Rangers from Perfect Street – the Perfect Street Rangers – and the Japanese dutifully take notes, probably to look for a street sign from Perfect Street!”
September 10th, 2024 at 16:04#10 Uwe:
yes, I remember, at the time of THOBL Ritchie said that he really liked Ian’s voice on that album and that he judged it to be very warm and rounded.
but I don’t know….these compliments made now 30 years after 1993 seem less formal to me, almost a sort of awareness on Ritchie’s part despite the disagreements that we all know well
September 10th, 2024 at 22:48#7 Adel Faragalla:
they should not admit only Stairway to Heaven!
September 10th, 2024 at 22:57apart from the covers (which people often don’t know are covers, a bit like our Hush), led zeppelin have plagiarised a lot of their most famous songs, to list them all we’ll be here until tomorrow!
@2 Ritchie has said, in the past, that “Gillan was a fantastic singer in the early days.”
September 11th, 2024 at 00:31However, Blackmore didn’t like it when IG couldn’t hit the high notes on songs like “Child in Time” – figured it was largely due to excessive partying. Much of what Gillan croons today sounds better than the late 1980s/early ’90s Purple stuff. Strangely, IG’s voice sounded crisp on solo discs like “Accidentally on Purpose” and “Naked Thunder,” the latter of which I think is underrated. “No More Cane on the Brazos” and “Nothing But the Best” are stellar tracks.
And how about the “Toolbox” album James? Have you heard this one? IG had 46 years back then and it was his one last Big Hurrah going for his TOTAL voice. Title track, “Candy Horizon” and especially coda to “Don’t Hold Me Back” have these spine tingling banshees for the one last time, toa godly effect. Not to mention the fact that the album is one of the hardest rocking (if not metallic) records in whole discog of Purple tree. “Don’t hold me BAAAAAAAAAA*****!!!!!!”. I will love it forever, might as well be he was the only singer who had this range at this age (excluding here Glenn who had the range, but never this much of control and finesse on his banshees). Those of Gillan are exciting, primal but perfectly exquisite in the context of the raw power of these songs.
September 11th, 2024 at 10:46I once asked Roger Glover how they solved the copyright issue on these two tracks. He said – very simple. The publishers easily agreed with each other and the topic never came up.
September 11th, 2024 at 11:47What is it with that constant Led Zep bashing here? They were a fine band with socially aware, non-escapist lyrics, a very accurate lead guitarist, a singer with a warm masculine voice avoiding all histrionics, a nimble and light-footed drummer skipping weightlessly across the beat plus that other guy with the fluid piano and organ solos and prominent-in-the-mix bass on their dry echo- and reverb-sparse recordings. Not to mention an exquisite taste in not too mature female companionship.
I HATE it when they don’t get the credit they so richly deserve, stop it! Whole Lotta Love has some of the most elegant chord changes ever and Stairway To Heaven is an exercise in succinct, original songwriting eschewing any pretentious fluff.
September 11th, 2024 at 14:22For all his not so great traits, Ritchie does have one thing not: a long memory for past grievances or disagreements. And for all his positive traits, Big Ian has a memory long enough to circle the equator and then some.
I think Ritchie is physically well behind the point of being able to play live with DP again (unless someone else plays rhythm and riffs, but Ritchie could still solo), but it has long been time to bury the hatchet. Ian could play congas (a little and just lightly!) on the next Blackmore’s Night album.
September 11th, 2024 at 15:37in general Gillan in the 80s didn’t take care of his voice, Blackmore is partly right, and everyone in MKII is partly to blame because if you really care about your singer and you have social relationships everyone would tell him in chorus ad nauseam “hey Ian you’re ruining your voice and you sing incorrectly, it’s time you seriously go to a speech therapist and take singing lessons to set your voice correctly again to make the notes you could do in 1972”
Gillan probably didn’t care at all, it was in the last years of the Ian Gillan band that he started to sing badly and he carried this with him into the following years.
then with Toolbox and TBRO he fired his last cartridges, and then he started to take more care of his voice and then he changed his way of singing because he could now reach the high register for short high notes in live performances.
but then this was all compatible with the age that is still increasing, and that’s fine, Big Ian’s voice in his new dimension of the last 15/20 years is very beautiful and gives emotions in the same way.
of course Geoff Tate or Michael Kiske can still reach very high notes that Gillan couldn’t reach at the same age, and probably when they’re 78 they’ll be able to reach higher than Gillan, but the vocal setting and the care of the voice was different.
however, apart from Glenn who still has an incredible falsetto (but which he never connects with his chest voice), there isn’t a singer around from the 70s who can hold the notes he held back then…maybe only Sammy Hagar is still better than Ian.
I would love to hear what Steve Perry can do now, but I don’t think he’s sung for many years now.
September 11th, 2024 at 20:11#16 Uwe:
The Zep were fantastic musicians, they made history in the Olympus of hard rock, they were pioneers and created a very important trend that then reached the Guns’ Roses and Glam.
they wrote legendary songs too. but they also did their beautiful plagiarisms, they are not saintly composers as many especially outside here think, here.
Coming back to our boys, do you think it’s impossible to see in the future even a photo of Ritchie and Ian together for a handshake and a smile?
September 11th, 2024 at 21:34I believe such a scene of mutual forgiving and reconnecting would require more movement by Ian than by Ritchie.
September 11th, 2024 at 21:45Yo,
LZ were doing the same as what many others were doing, in rehashing redeveloping their favourite tunes, or at least elements of them within the new sounds found in electric guitars, bass’s & keyboards. There’s nothing wrong with that, & if they hadn’t of done it, we’d likely have never heard of the original tunes.
People simply get upset when there’s $$$ involved, & when the tunes are still making money 50+ years after their release, yet alone the “original” release dates.
There are worse culprits I think, but it seems that court-fees end-up being impressive amounts too.
Such is life filled with greedy people.
Peace !
September 13th, 2024 at 23:05I could listen to Ritchie tell stories about DP, and Rainbow, all day long! Yes, it was around the time of the TBRO album that Ritchie praised Ian in an interview. I wonder if those 2 realized just how Great they were together, or if the MKII line up realized the same thing!!
September 19th, 2024 at 19:09