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All right now
The year was 1976, and on March 24 Sweet were playing a show in Santa Monica, California. It was just days after the death of Paul Kosoff, so they decided to pay him a tribute by performing a cover of Free’s All right now for the encore. Ritchie Blackmore was in the neighbourhood, and joined them on stage for the occasion.
Sweet guitarist Andy Scott recalls:
It was completely spontaneous. We had met him a couple of nights earlier, and the one thing that he’d said to our tour manager, who used to work for Deep Purple a guy called Mick Angus was ‘You’d better let me get into the gig tonight. Because the last time we’d played Los Angeles he hadn’t been able to get into the show, because our management at that time and the record company had virtually sold out the gig even before tickets went on sale.
Ritchie said to [Mick Angus], ‘I’m gonna come, and I’m gonna get in this time.’ And we said, ‘Of course you are!’ And somebody made the joke, ‘If you want to get up, put your guitar in the boot.’ There was an offer to set up another stack, but I think Ritchie just said, ‘Plug me into anything, I’ll be alright.
And I think the only amps on my side of the stage that were available for him to plug into were the amps that I think were monitoring the synthesisers, which had a couple of horns in them, which left him with a rather loud and clear sound.
Thanks to Louder Sound for the quote, and to Sweet official YouTube channel for the clip.
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing
I think I have heard this before somewhere. Either way it is a one off moment in time situation. That would be Brian Connolly going right off vocally at the end I imagine. Another rock ‘n roll tragedy. Cheers.
October 8th, 2024 at 23:01Ritchie in his fetching leather jacket …
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTX0JKf-6f_erT6GQ59bin9sdT5hbnxqc_oyA&s
It was all over the teen magazines in 1976, perceived as Sweet finally being knighted by a “serious musician”. They even made a poster out of the shot above. Of course the (Prude) Prog detractors at my school all snickered: “Typical, now Blackmore even plays with Sweet, that just about fits, Purple were always Realschulrock too.”
October 8th, 2024 at 23:38The official Sweet fan club “Home Sweet Home” (HSH)
https://www.thesweet.com/hsh/
did a limited CD EP release of this historical artifact (along with two other live tracks from the same tour) already decades ago, in 1996 actually:
https://www.rainbowfanclan.com/members/blackmore/discography/1996_sweet.html
There were some extra pics of Ritchie featured:
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQp6B-Vt6YCN0n9wOY5DqUgkdGuTzkbOw7-Lg&s
But now there seems to be even the full Santa Monica gig available:
https://www.thesweet.com/hsh/santamonicalive-1976.pdf
October 9th, 2024 at 01:12To my ear I can easily hear Ritchie sounding like Ritchie. But if I wasn’t told that this was Sweet I wouldn’t have ever guessed it.
October 9th, 2024 at 04:49My first music love ” Sweet” ..first bought single record (45) “Fox On The Run”…Mick Tucker was a great drummer
October 9th, 2024 at 11:02@5
October 9th, 2024 at 12:02Mick Tucker was great! Not Ian Price great though ☺️
@3 caveat emptor Uwe judging from the sample track from Santa Monica that’s available on the website you linked to
https://www.thesweet.com/hsh/SML76-TST.mp3
October 9th, 2024 at 12:02I think the track came into existence for a worthy cause – to commemorate Paul Kossoff -, but other than that pretty glaringly shows that Mick T is no Simon Kirke, Steve P is no Andy Fraser, Brian C no Paul Rodgers and that certainly neither Andy S nor Ritchie B are Paul Kossoff. ‘Alright Now’ is an apparently simplistic rock staple with its three chords but it gets frequently massacred by bands trying to cover it, I’ve hardly ever seen it done well by anyone (that includes versions by various resurrected Bad Company line-ups) and Sweet’s impromptu version is no exception. Ritchie is not the only one to blame, but he sure doesn’t help either.
But Ritchie and Andy are not in bad company (!), Slash and Neil Schon managed to mess it up too, badly, here at 11:52:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s96e7jGDR3c
When Free recorded the song in the studio, Paul Kossoff had issues playing the riff with a suitable groove and feel that an exasperated perfectionist Andy Fraser (= writer of the song) grabbed the guitar from him and played it himself. And that Woodstock 1994 gig almost fell flat on its face when a Paul Rodgers jokingly asked Andy on the phone in preparation of the gig whether he could even still play ‘Alright Now’ to which an estranged Fraser answered icily: “I wrote it.”, feeling completely insulted. No love lost between those two.
Not a happy band Free then, even at the best of times.
October 9th, 2024 at 13:02Omg the guitarplaying is painful to listen too 😂
October 9th, 2024 at 14:37It was written by a bassist, what do you expect? Guitarists have their natural limits. 😑
October 9th, 2024 at 15:12David, Sweet weren’t DP live, you know?! There was always a certain ramshackle element to them and when the music got too complex, Brian C was quickly at his limits and started sounding insecure. There is this myth about how great Sweet were live, nurtured by Sweet fans over the years, but the truth is: Bands like Status Quo, Slade, Nazareth or UFO would have creamed them into the ground in a live situation. Sweet were competent, but not naturals. There is the Sweet live album Strung Up from 1975 and there are DP‘s Made in Japan/Europe – you have to be deaf not to hear the difference.
I have that CD Live EP, but I do not claim that it constitutes an indispensable part of any self-respecting Ritchie collection. A curio, nothing more.
October 9th, 2024 at 19:41It is a total one off performance by a band who most likely would have been under the influence somewhat & Ritchie himself also enjoyed a few tipples every now & then. ‘Just plug the guitar into anything’, says it all. That is the trouble with recording or filming something, probably best if it wasn’t, as many one off or guest appearances were not. There are some shockers out there. Cheers.
October 9th, 2024 at 21:59Kossoff was not the technically most versatile guitarist, but he had incredible feel, he’s in Peter Green territory.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8bYBKEWEkE
Of course his raging addictions … If you think Tommy Bolin was bad under the influence, you haven’t heard Koss, he really fell apart badly. Tommy could be totally wasted and still muster a minimum of chops.
The irony of that Sweet performance is that probably both Andy Scott and Ritchie Blackmore were the more proficient guitarists, but neither could match Kossoff’s feel that night.
Does anyone remember Beckett? That is where the Back Street Crawler (Koss’ final band) singer came from, great forgotten band and I’d be surprised if The Black Crowes did not give them a very careful listen:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJ272g3Xjlk
Harmony vocals, American influence, yet Brit grit, great singer with stage presence, interesting guitar interplay with West Coast and even jazzy influences plus a creative rhythm section, what the hell was not to like about these guys? Steve Harris (the guy in the striped pants with that rubber monster mask band) was a young fan of theirs.
October 10th, 2024 at 01:38Well, it was alright then… and it’s alright now!
October 10th, 2024 at 03:05@11.
I know Uwe. In some respects Deep Purple ruined my musical appreciation. DP were my first band a very, very few come even close to MIJ. That said, I’ve seen The Sweet three times in the last few years (supporting Rainbow + twice more) and they’ve been really good. I’ve got a live official bootleg from 2019. I know that only Andy Scott is from the original line up but it’s chalk and cheese to the free track from Santa Monica. For Alright Now they actually sound a bit better but on Six Teens it’s awful
October 10th, 2024 at 07:00set me free was a mind blowing heavy song.great old days.
October 10th, 2024 at 10:27You said it, David, Andy Scott’s Sweet today or even in more recent decades is a different band, I’ve seen them too and they do fine.
But mid-70s Sweet were a different kettle of fish:
– Compared to eternal road hogs like Purple, Quo or Gallagher, they simply didn’t have the live experience, Sweet were not the type of band to do 200 gigs or more per year in the 70ies. They were a singles band promoting their stuff on a myriad TV shows in Europe miming (as was de rigueur then). Go to YouTube and check out how many mimed TV appearances Sweet have in comparison to DP – Mk III and IV did not mime in a TV studio EVER (Mk II had stopped doing so by Machine Head) because by then DP had surrendered the singles market in favor of being a put-bums-on-seats arena and stadium live attraction which offered more commercial longevity.
– DP excelled in the art of recording what they could reproduce live and basically did only that. Sweet’s Chinn/Chapman-written and Phil Wainman-produced teenybopper chart fodder was never created with the thought of being reproducible live, it was made to sound spectacular and instantly recognizable blaring out of a cheap radio. Sweet songs from the era feature double-tracked drums (for that glammy Gary Glitter sound), added percussion track, artificially speeded up, layered backing vocals (their trademark), acoustic guitar overdubs and incessant harmony and triple-tracked electric guitar by Andy (who once, while being a conferencier before a Wishbone Ash gig and interviewing his namesake Andy Powell genially said: “I did a lot of harmony guitar in the 70ies too, but I could only play with myself.” To which the other Andy replied: “As one does!”) + lots of other studio trickery and novelty gimmicky derring-do. A lot if not most of their stuff didn’t work well on stage at all, especially not in the mid-70s and with only a four piece line-up sans keyboards – and The Sixteens with its elaborate arrangement was a case in point. When I saw the Sweet live in 1978 they had an extra keyboarder and an extra guitarist (both featured prominently and introduced on stage, I liked that) and had dropped ALL songs from their Chinn-Chapman era, their oldest number being Fox On The Run from 1975. They had basically reinvented themselves as a band that was at that point closer to 10cc than DP, they didn’t even dress up for stage anymore, but preferred a Californian muso look in jeans, beards and all.
– Brian C had a recognizable voice, but that was pretty much it. He was not in the league of Ian Gillan, Robert Plant, Paul Rodgers, Glenn Hughes, David Coverdale, Freddie Mercury or Ronnie James Dio, far from it. Nor was he cut out to front a band playing more sophisticated music as Sweet did in their final era of the original line-up. He was actually a rather shy man, kind of stiff in his communication with the audience. Andy Scott and Steve Priest had more of an audience rapport than he did.
October 10th, 2024 at 14:28Not pertaining to this subject at all but, I know Uwe posts here and wanted to say “Thanks”! In an earlier post you said you opened for Roger Chapman. I’d never heard of him but decided to get a Box set of his music. It is excellent!! It’s always fun discovering new music!! Thanks Much!!
October 10th, 2024 at 18:06I’m happy you like it, Leslie! Roger Chapman, with the Streetwalkers and beyond, was a major concert draw in Germany in the late 70s and up to the early 90s. But I’ve noticed before that he didn’t have the same recognition in the UK, much less the US of A. Geographic distribution of an artist’s popularity is sometimes weird.
October 11th, 2024 at 00:00I agree with @12…..it’s hard to pull off for a one-time reunion a quality original ..All Right now” song with lots of emotion groove and that irresistible Paul Kossoff guitar riff that inspired Angus Young. .Nothing strange .Not even the eminent guitarists from Thin Lizzy could reach Eric Bell’s original guitarist’s sound in the song “Whiskey in the Jar” is an Irish traditional song.. nor Metallica who played a version very similar to that of Thin Lizzy with a heavier sound.
And “Smoke On The Water”. To me it was the best and only sounded good when Ritchie played…neither Bolin, nor Gers, nor Satriani, nor May nor Iommi nor Fenwick nor Steve Morris, nor Steve Morse…sorry…once
Steve Mores on play SOTW at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (wearing a nice shirt:)), showed his modesty and humbled himself and paid tribute to Ritchie by playing the original solo note for notes.
Only one, who was his own, SOTW performed in his original punk rock, fierce way by Bernie Torme (intro, solo part together with big Ian “Strange Kind Of Woman” with great from the logistics of John Mc Coy’s bass rumble…amazing time (1979-1981)While DP was frozen
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMRG6-U7eYI
October 11th, 2024 at 10:13(Uwe takes deep breath and despairs at the injustices of the world …)
Lieber Iveca, that “irresistible Paul Kossoff riff” was written by Andy Fraser, the bassist, and played by him because Paul couldn’t get the hang of it in the studio! It was written by Andy, Free’s musical director in eternal conflict with Paul Rodgers, after Free suffered a particularly bad gig and everyone stood around in the dressing room feeling dejected. Andy picked up an acoustic guitar standing around and wrote the song impromptu to cheer up his bandmates with the “alright now, baby it’s a alright now”-chorus.
But that just shows how bassists are always ignored! Fürchterlich.
Ok, I’ve calmed down again. 😂 Re SOTW, there are different ways to play it. There is the Mk II version (which Ritchie did not always painstakingly follow, as the decades went on his renditions of the song were sometimes loveless), the Mk III version with the unnecessary key change at the beginning (already created with Mk II live in 1973), Bolin’s skippy Mk IV version (which I liked), IGB’s jazz-funk tour de force (which always brings a smile to my face), Bernie Tormé’s punk avalanche of it, the bludgeoning version the Sabs did, Steve Morse’s scholarly approach to the riff and of course what Simon does today, which is a no frills approach with lots of attitude.
I agree that Steve copying Ritchie note for note at the RnRHoF was a nice touch, but I wouldn’t have liked to hear it like that every time he played it, it’s too much of a reenactment. BTW: On the Japanese edition of =1 there is an SOTW version where Simon starts the solo by replicating Blackmore, then does his own stuff, only to exit with one of those trademark Tommy Bolin note flurries – when I heard that the first time, I stopped doing what I was doing and laughed! Neat.
October 11th, 2024 at 15:37@17
October 11th, 2024 at 18:19You’re right regarding Brian C!
I’ve listened several times to their live performances, but he was very loved by the ladies, even more than Steve Priest and Andy Scott, and seeing past the lack in his voice I guess the most important was how the audience (the teen-girls) wanted to buy their records and wanted to throw their allowances in to merchandise.
As Mick Tucker said in an interview: the kids are the only ones who supported us!
No Brian C was certainly NOT a Ian Gillan 🤣 (Robert Plant etc I couldn’t care less about (well maybe a little bit Freddie M) )
There is only one Ian Gillan, think I have mentioned that before 😃
Have a lovely weekend everybody 🤗
@21 OK…scripted and directed by Andy Fraser (he was only 18 years old, amazing!!!!!)small help PR …but the main role “in the movie” is Paul Kossoff
October 12th, 2024 at 10:42Herr Uwe, don’t be modest
Without your professional colleagues, rock would not be so progressive…for my taste
Sir Paul, John Entwistle, John Poul Jones, Phil Laynott, Flea, Martin Turner, Les Claypool, Roger Waters, Peter Hook, Peter Cetera, Jack Bruce, Jean-Jacques Burnel[, John Deacon and Illsley… of course the DP family. …Tanya O’Callaghan,Beth-Ami Heavenstone,Roger,Glenn,Neil,John….
@13…
Beckett were awesome, indeed I own their LP and (yes) it’s a very interesting album… there’s a wee bit of Plsnt in the vocal department… but they do seem to have been influential even with todays younger bands.. Planet Rock played something the other day… this:
https://youtu.be/aJg4OJxp-co?si=7VlnZJXpnB9lMQuC
Yep Zepp obviously, but the other thing I thought of was Beckett… who I think hailed from the North East of England…
Like I say, an interesting curio that has stood the test of time and deserves way more kudos.
https://youtu.be/vj1Av2mYRRY?si=7oeEs0rLOY-rZX04
October 12th, 2024 at 19:48Whatever his drugs and limitations, Koss had one thing in abundance: tone. That is something you either have or don’t have, you can’t learn tone.
I played with a guitarist who had a Les Paul because he just liked the looks, it it was never really for him and he never got it to sing (but he sounded great with a Tele for instance). So one day another guitarist sees the Paula and asks”May I try it?” So he plugs it in, same amp, same amp setting, same grubby old strings and he’s technically not even a very good guitarist, but from the first note he plays, that Paula which we all thought was simply a duff specimen because it never sounded like Les Pauls sound, all of the sudden sounds creamy, full and sings like hell. After a few minutes, he asked whether he could buy it and that is what its owner indeed did, sell it to the other guy (he never regretted it). That guitar had found the right set of hands.
October 12th, 2024 at 23:34@11
October 13th, 2024 at 06:54I wonder if that’s the real reason why BBC was reluctant to let Sweet perform live?
I doubt that, Karin, and it’s not like Sweet couldn’t play live, they just weren’t an especially seasoned live band. And also for their target audience, an appearance on Top Of The Pops miming was much more relevant than a radio show done live, their visual impact was important. Steve Priest’s sartorial excesses that really only had Dave Hill from Slade as competition at the time couldn’t really be projected via radio, you can’t really hear a painted on Adolf Hitler mustache, it is an expression of good taste that has to be seen to be fully savored.
https://64.media.tumblr.com/00fe281ecebb194ee38058b95957e3e3/tumblr_pxg8zhmSPi1yutfrxo2_500.jpg
Speaking of Slade, while aiming for a similar audience and also concentrated on the singles market, they were a very seasoned live band, because they had spent years and years on the working men’s club circuit in the 60s and early 70s before they finally hit it big (mind you, with their own songs, not as some prop for the Chinn Chapman hit factory).
October 13th, 2024 at 13:50@ 6 It’s going to be a (Price) to pay for that.. ha ha
October 13th, 2024 at 14:45@27
October 13th, 2024 at 16:40Well why didn’t BBC let them play live?
I remember to have read how they were filled with bitterness towards the BBC.
Was Deep Purple allowed to play live? I somehow can’t imagine Ian G put up with any restrictions!
And of course you’re completely right about Steve Priest’ cute appearances, not to forget Andy Scott’s pig tales 🤓 it would have taken down the impression if a speaker would have tried to explain their adorable looks 😄
Was the Chinn Chapman machine so bad after all? Not every band in the world are from the get go as qualified as songwriters as Gillan-Glover were ☺️
The question is, would Sweet have got that start if not Chinn Chapman had helped out?
The songwriters from that early era, as an example Chinn & Chapman filled a niche as there were very few really good songwriters ‘available’ at that time. They were there but as busy as they could be helping launch many a career of certain artists. Similar to session musicians. From the late 50’s through to the 60’s & into the 70’s. Gillan & Glover were ‘naive’ musicians (Glover’s words) like so many other young musicians were at that time. Doesn’t Glover always say that when joining the DP band, that provided a link to both launching as a songwriting ‘team’ (with Blackmore no doubt) & also to excellent musicianship within the band. Were they that ‘qualified’ initially, no. Listen to Episode Six. I do think it would have been sort of like an an apprenticeship of sorts initially, as it is with other budding young musicians working with new or experienced musicians. and then something clicks between the relevant parties involved. Regarding The Sweet & many others, no I don’t think they would have made it with out those songwriters churning out the hits for them. Cheers.
October 13th, 2024 at 20:49Chinn Chapman wrote a lot of great tunes though their lyrics seldom made sense (Wigwam Bam, Coco, Ballroom Blitz, Blockbuster, Can the Can, Tiger Feet, 48 Crash, Devil Gate Drive, they admitted that they often just used words that sounded good irrespective of f meaning or made them up on the spot).
I don’t know what the BBC disliked about the Sweet specifically, but they probably didn’t see them as a serious rock band. Which in the early to mid 70ies nobody really did, not playing on your early singles and always relying on outside writers was nothing rock critics appreciated. When Slade played in the early 70s on a regular rock festival in Britain everyone thought they’d be bottled off the stage, but they were such a shit-tight ensemble they won everyone over.
At the German school I went to, admitting as a 15 year-old that you liked Sweet was social suicide. They were regarded as a teeny bopper band, beneath Deep Purple, Uriah Heep and Status Quo even. Give Us A Wink was a proper power pop/hard rock album, but nobody really listened by then. The issue with teeny bopper bands is that can generally only retain their audience for three years or so, as the girls and boys grow up they move on to other music. That happened to T. Rex, to Sweet, to David Cassidy, to Slade, Mud and Suzi Quatro. Your old fans simply forget about you and critics and older record buyers don’t really accept you evolving as an artist. And the new generation of teeny boppers want new heroes, not something their older sisters and brothers heard.
By 1975/76, Sweet had expired their shelf life as a teenage sensation. A name change might have helped them. But it even took Midge Ure years and years to leave his Slik image behind (long after he had left the band) and reestablish himself as the man we know today from Rich Kids, Thin Lizzy, Visage, Ultravox, Band Aid and as a singer/songwriter in his own right.
https://youtu.be/LHgpo0uZgnY
Slik came from the competition hit factory to Chinn Chapman, namely Bill Martin and Phil Coulter who had been the Svengalis for the Bay City Rollers (who in 1976 were beginning to face a similar predicament as their nemesis Sweet). Forever & Ever was initially slotted as a BCR number and it employs the typical BCR sound and instrumentation, it doesn’t take much imagination to picture Les McKeown sing it.
At his live gigs today, he still gets requests for Forever & Ever, to which he reacts good-naturedly, but he never ever plays it. Too bad actually, it would be fun if he did it as an encore one day.
.
October 13th, 2024 at 23:43Chinn Chapman wrote a lot of great tunes though their lyrics seldom made sense (Wigwam Bam, Coco, Ballroom Blitz, Blockbuster, Can the Can, Tiger Feet, 48 Crash, Devil Gate Drive, they admitted that they often just used words that sounded good irrespective of f meaning or made them up on the spot).
I don’t know what the BBC disliked about the Sweet specifically, but they probably didn’t see them as a serious rock band. Which in the early to mid 70ies nobody really did, not playing on your early singles and always relying on outside writers was nothing rock critics appreciated. When Slade played in the early 70s on a regular rock festival in Britain everyone thought they’d be bottled off the stage, but they were such a shit-tight ensemble they won everyone over.
At the German school I went to, admitting as a 15 year-old that you liked Sweet was social suicide. They were regarded as a teeny bopper band, beneath Deep Purple, Uriah Heep and Status Quo even. Give Us A Wink was a proper power pop/hard rock album, but nobody really listened by then. The issue with teeny bopper bands is that can generally only retain their audience for three years or so, as the girls and boys grow up they move on to other music. That happened to T. Rex, to Sweet, to David Cassidy, to Slade, Mud and Suzi Quatro. Your old fans simply forget about you and critics and older record buyers don’t really accept you evolving as an artist. And the new generation of teeny boppers want new heroes, not something their older sisters and brothers heard.
By 1975/76, Sweet had expired their shelf life as a teenage sensation. A name change might have helped them. But it even took Midge Ure years and years to leave his Slik image behind (long after he had left the band) and reestablish himself as the man we know today from Rich Kids, Thin Lizzy, Visage, Ultravox, Band Aid and as a singer/songwriter in his own right.
https://youtu.be/LHgpo0uZgnY
Slik came from the competition hit factory to Chinn Chapman, namely Bill Martin and Phil Coulter who had been the Svengalis for the Bay City Rollers (who in 1976 were beginning to face a similar predicament as their nemesis Sweet). Forever & Ever was initially slotted as a BCR number and it employs the typical BCR sound and instrumentation, it doesn’t take much imagination to picture Les McKeown sing it.
At his live gigs today, he still gets requests for Forever & Ever, to which he reacts good-naturedly, but he never ever plays it. Too bad actually, it would be fun if he did it as an encore one day.
October 13th, 2024 at 23:43@30 and @31 (and apparently also @32, how come you write in stereo Uwe 😃)
Well guys, you agree! 🤩🤩
I need to let that sink in while I drink a cup of coffee….
MacGregor I’ve always adored Gillan&Glover’s approach in writing lyrics. Maybe it’s not so polished as f.i Chinn and Chapman, but they feel much more alive (the lyrics not the persons behind, even though I would not be completely surprised if I discovered one day that the ‘Chinn&Chapmann’s of the world are indeed animated 😅)
And I’m happy you see eye to eye on the fact that no ordinary band would have made it without these authorships!
And here we can conclude that Deep Purple is no ordinary band!
When I was a little kid I collected chewing gum with idol photos inside and I never got those I really wanted (Donny and Marie Osmond) (ok I was very young 🤭) but always Slade 😝 I really did not like the silly bangs on the guitar player ☺️ so for my point of view they didn’t count!
October 14th, 2024 at 09:11Sweet on the other hand, well they were almost as popular as the Osmonds! What I mean with all this gibberish is that for very young persons it may not be the quality of the song production that really matters, but more the appearances, where Sweet certainly beat Slade!
Have a lovely day everybody ☀️☕️☕️
@17
October 14th, 2024 at 09:29They simply had the live experience 70ies.
https://concerts.fandom.com/wiki/The_Sweet
Thanks, Pacuha, those gig lists show that Sweet did quite a bit of touring, if not on the scale of DP. I guess the fact that they did not have the smoothest live sound, but were always a bit on the rough & ready side evidences that their single hit sound did not transfer to the stage that well and that they weren’t in the league of DP as performing live goes.
Purple is an oddity as a band because at no point of their career since the Mk II line-up did they have issues presenting live what they had recorded in the studio. A lot of people even prefer DP live to in the studio and we all know how the MIJ versions of the MH tracks seem to be everyone’s favorites. As DP fans we take the consistency and quality of DP live performances somehow for granted, but it does actually make them stand out as band, always did.
October 14th, 2024 at 13:39@35
October 14th, 2024 at 16:38I couldn’t agree more!
Deep Purple is a kind of complete and total theatre! Not that I think less of their performances, I certainly DO NOT!
But when ever I listen to a record, or see their recorded live performances I always feel like my living room is carpeted with sound and appearance from the gentlemen.
It is a total show, the music tapestry is amazing. Nothing is missed. At all 💜
I can in all honesty say I have never experienced that with any other band!
Yes yes, I know there do exist other bands with some similar music tapestry, but they lack the voice of Ian 😊
@ 33- You said songwriting @ 29 Karin, so I presumed you meant the complete songs, lyrics are a part of that. Chinn & Chapman’s lyrics are, well best not discussed really compared to other better lyric writers, but that wasn’t their forte as much as being complete songwriters churning out those top 40 hits, all good. Cheers.
October 14th, 2024 at 21:08@37
October 15th, 2024 at 07:11Of course you’re right MacGregor 🙏🏼
But I also thought of the fact that their main audience (Sweet’s) often were teens who merely were obsessed with the characters more than the quality of the individual song. Just like me I guess 😄
Sweet‘s music probably guided eventually quite a few people to real hard rock/heavy rock/heavy metal. Together with Suzi Quatro they certainly had the hard-rockiest image and music, at least by 1974, especially if you compare them to Mud, BCR, Kenny, Slik, Smokie, Racey, Glitter Band etc. But the songs penned by Chinn Chapman for Suzi had (coupled with her very electric piano-driven band sound) a much more 50s rock’n’roll feel – in line with her adoration for Elvis. From Wig-Wam Bam onwards, which was released in late summer 1972, for a period of five years (until their fortunes began to wane, i.e. they changed their musical style once again, there is hardly any hard rock music on their Level Headed album from early 1978) all of Sweet‘s hits contained hard rock ingredients: Blockbuster, Ballroom Blitz, Teenage Rampage, Turn It Down, The Sixteens, Fox On The Run, Action, The Lies In Your Eyes, Lost Angels … these are all at their core hook-laden hard rock/power pop tunes. And singles hits-wise, Sweet had a good and long run, especially in Germany, in their heyday, nearly all their singles led the charts here.
From my experience, quite a few teenage males morphed from Sweet to Status Quo and from there to Deep Purple. It was a classic evolution.
October 15th, 2024 at 13:41@35 …with the exception of 1976 and 1988 when the quality of their live performances took a nose dive.
October 15th, 2024 at 17:40I thought Little Ian played better with Mk IV than anytime with Mk II – he was at his peak then and had picked up all these American influences. He was an extremely versatile and well-rounded – groove, swing AND technique – drummer in 1975/76, more so than any other drummer in a similar band.
October 15th, 2024 at 23:32