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Celebrating Burn‘s 50th
Glenn Hughes is celebrating the 50th anniversary of Burn with a string of dates in Portugal and Spain this May. He will be performing the album (apparently, in its entirety), as well as other Mk3 and Mk4 numbers. His band will consist of Søren Andersen (guitar), Ash Sheehan (drums) and Bob Fridzema (keyboards).
It was 50 years ago, in the Summer of 1973, that the BURN album by Deep Purple was written at Clearwell castle in The Forrest of Dean, Gloucestershire
It was recorded in October 1973 in Montreux, Switzerland.
We all became one in this centuries old castle in the UK countryside, it felt like Deep Purple were a new band, with David (Coverdale) and I as new members, we couldn’t wait to start working on new songs. The atmosphere was electric, in such amazing surroundings.
All the songs on BURN were written in the crypt/dungeon, underneath the great hall. We worked on a new song every day, and we were in the flow. Musically we would play, and work out ideas, and David and I would come up with vocal melodies that would later have lyrics. I remember it like it was yesterday.
As you could imagine, Ritchie Blackmore was in full prankster mode, Jon had warned me, and he rigged my room one night with a speaker that was hidden, and had ghostly voices delivered to my bedside.
The title track was the last song to be written. We came back from the pub, and went down into the crypt, and magic happened.
It’s time to celebrate BURN, and I’m really looking forward to seeing you.
Further details in our calendar.
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing
Reading about Blackmore & his pranks influenced me to do a similar trick on my youngest (9 year old) brother at around that time. I set up a little speaker in the outdoor privy (dunny out here in Oz) & played the ending from Black Sabbath’s ‘Children of the Grave’ song. At night time of course & with the howling wind effect or possibly a dog & that whispering voice saying ‘children of the grave, children of the grave’, poor little blighter, it frightened the life out of him. Gotta love Blackmore eh? Where would we all be without him? Cheers.
February 4th, 2023 at 22:00Anyone who can go to these gigs, do it! I saw Glenn on his 2018 tour which was similar to this, MkIII & IV songs, all played excellently.
February 4th, 2023 at 23:30Wonderful!
Go, Go!
Please, please, please, Mr Hughes, record it and release it on album and dvd / bluray.
February 5th, 2023 at 00:59Happy birthday “Burn”, & thanks to all Mk-III participants !!! All the best for the tour Glenn, & keep the “A200” handy lol !
Peace !
February 5th, 2023 at 03:51As this tour will last 2023-24, it looks like the Dead Daisies is another closed chapter in Glenn’s turbulent career. Maybe he would have been better off just stictly focusing on his solo career from the restart in 1991 and eventually it would have paid off?
February 5th, 2023 at 09:25Glenn has had some serious ups and downs in his career, but Burn is not one of them. It is a rock solid piece of Deep Purple history and will go down in my opinion as one the best 3 studio LP’s in their history!! All 5 of the players on this LP were (at least temporarily) newly energized for this magnificent piece of music!
February 5th, 2023 at 14:10Daniel @5
February 5th, 2023 at 14:31When you have a singer/bass guitarist in a band then he is half the band.
He didn’t leave The DD he is just doing what he likes to do because he can.
BCC, BS, The DD , DP or playing solo is all what defines him so he is the most successful artist from the DP family tree and that is not my opinion. That’s a proven fact.
Peace ✌️
@ 2 Agree! Saw it too and it was very, very good!
February 5th, 2023 at 15:41Glenn does the Mk III material justice like no one else save the original Mk III line up.
February 5th, 2023 at 19:58Coincidentally, I only listened to the album intently a few days ago and realized once again that much like MH there is not a weak track on it.
Even ‘A’ 200 is a great progish and very dark, menacing tune, great arrangement, great solos – when has mankind’s valiant, if often futile battle against parasites ever been more inspirational I cry?
https://images.freshop.com/00395814002501/d93078c3752c639711f98f7bc72b41f4_large.png
And never was Jon’s Hammond more primal (or for that matter: louder) than on Might Just Take Your Life. His piano playing on Lay Down Stay Down is great too. What’s Goin’ On Here I like for its raucousness and the other tracks are all classics in any case, especially the majestic Sail Away (which should have been the single).
If only Glenn’s Rickenbacker 4001 was a bit more audible in the mix! You can hear him, but even I have to perk my ears for it. No comparison to the sonic prominence it had on MH and WDWTWA in the hands of Roger. Somehow neither Glenn nor Martin Birch managed to find a proper place for it in the mix. Glenn was unaccustomed to playing a Ric (and perhaps also to playing with as dominant an organist as Jon – Trapeze had no keyboard player once they had moved into hard rock/funk territory) and Martin obviously just as unaccustomed to getting Glenn’s sound preferences and playing style down on tape convincingly. My only gripe with the otherwise flawless album.
February 5th, 2023 at 20:26@ 7 – that would depend on one’s interpretation of the word ‘successful’. Cheers.
February 5th, 2023 at 21:18@10…Ha,ha ! Somehow I knew you might have a light-bulb moment if I mentioned A200…It’s a great track, & in some ways a little miss-placed on Burn for many reasons..
1. It has dark humor attached with it…Look out parasites lol !
2. It’s an instrumental.
3. It’s very much prog-rock, though different to “The mule”…And we hadn’t had a prog-tune for 2 x albums.
The solo work is exceptional from all concerned imo, & is quite possibly RB’s finest moment on the album, if only because he carried elements / phrases from this tune on with him into Rainbow, eg, “The Gates of Babylon”. It’s like a cesspool of signature phrases that work within a lot of tunes, especially in the live arena, where you here bits & pieces of it when he solo’s / improvises through other tunes in the Mk-III live-catalog. Jon was always playing something new, along with I.P. ( Yes G.H. was too, but to a lesser degree imo).
Peace !
February 6th, 2023 at 08:14Can’t believe it’s been 50 years. Not a bad track on it. A200 is one of the many highlights! Hopefully we will get a live album and DVD from this tour!
February 6th, 2023 at 09:38I should try some of that A200, living under a rock you do tend to pick up the odd parasite. It is a wonderful instrumental A200 & Blackmore, bless him. He had a tendency for the odd instrumental, love it. Coronarias Redig is ok for a bit of fun although I can see why it was left off the original Burn album.We don’t need vocals on every track just as we don’t need lead guitar on every vocal track either. Mix it up a little, do something different. I only listened to that instrumental ‘throw away’ track Son of Aleric the other day. Wonderful jam there. Who or where is the vocalist again? Who needs them. Cheers.
February 6th, 2023 at 09:58This album, that song dented my then fragile 13 year old brain.
February 6th, 2023 at 13:16“Yes G.H. was too, but to a lesser degree imo.”
Glenn played vastly different to Roger (or for that matter to how hard rock bassists played in 1973):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2OakB8fg-w
Roger is always on the beat – the Purple metronome; Glenn dances on the beat, he’s sometimes ahead, sometimes behind, sometimes right on top, he’s quirky on bass. Glenn also leaves more space than Roger (who is pretty much a continuous throb on bass), yet at the same time clamors for attention with his many slides into the upper register.
As regards the sheer number of notes, Roger actually plays more, but in an unobtrusive fashion. Glenn plays less, but pushes, shoves and drags the rhythm around. He counterpointed Little Ian much more often and was incremental to how Ian changed his approach to drumming from 1973 onwards leading to Blackmore’s sour comment in 1975: “In the end, when even Ian became funky, that’s when I knew I needed to get out.”
None of this is putting Roger down as a bassist – his style was pivotal for the Mk II wall of sound we all became addicted to. Together with Ian he’s really “driving the bus”. Glenn was more the Enduro motorcyclist in comparison or the bassist who does occasional strafing runs!
Related: A second Trapeze boxed set is scheduled by Cherry Red for spring called Midnight Flyers (the first one hasn’t even come out yet, but never mind):
https://www.cherryred.co.uk/product/trapeze-midnight-flyers-complete-recordings-volume-2-1974-1981-5cd-box-set/
While covering the post-Glenn phase in general, it will contain a live performance of Trapeze with Glenn in Arlington post-Mk IV split:
LIVE AT ARLINGTON (1976)
1 You Are The Music
2 L.A. Cutoff
3 Medusa
4 Space High
5 Coast To Coast
6 Midnight Flyer
7 Seafull
8 Jury
9 Way Back To The Bone
Yes, you read that right. With two tracks that were then yet to appear on Play Me Out in 1977 and obviously planned for a later on shelved Trapeze reunion album. I’m creaming into my pants as I write …
February 6th, 2023 at 14:27We do need to discuss personal hygiene issues here more often and thoroughly:
I remember catching lice from my kids in the 90ies – they had “introduced” them either from kindergarten or primary school, there even was a word for them making an (most unwelcome) appearance: “Läusealarm”, German phrase of the day, memorize it. Persistent little buggers (the lice, not my kids … well, them sometimes too …).
The German ‘A’ 200 is Goldgeist Forte, very efficient, I recommend it from experience. : – )
https://www.docmorris.de/images/produkte/02893829/GoldgeistFortefluessig.jpg
Can someone explain to me WHAT IT IS that is wrong with these guys from Purple that they always gave their instrumentals such salacious names as ‘A’ 200 (I somehow have a hunch that Purple, errm, members did not catch HEAD lice on US tours from such an innocent source as primary school kids, but that the matter went deeper – no pun intended!) or Difficult To Cure? Let’s not even talk about “Living Wreck” or “The Unwritten Law” …
https://media.tenor.com/ar418kLpAz0AAAAd/muppets-sam-the-eagle.gif
Legend has it that Roger – of all people – was the first one to catch the clap in early Mk II days and that as he hobbled in pain on stage while the penicillin was doing its miraculous work an empathetic Ritchie offered words of consolation as only he can: “Roger, if you’re going to croak on stage, can we make it part of the stage act and cremate you then and there?”
February 6th, 2023 at 15:50@11
February 6th, 2023 at 16:49Musically he is the most successful out of the deep purple family tree. But DP sells more tickets at twice the price of the DD and sold more albums With Steve Morse but I will leave it to your taste to decide if Glenn’s material in the last 20 year is the best of the whole lot.
Peace ✌️
I think my nom de plume says it all. If he plays in the UK and includes Coronavirus Catch The Rainbow, I guess I have to go, for the sheer history of the moment. If he can find someone to duet with on You Fool No One (and a drummer who can match Paice’s performance on Made in Europe, that will be Awsome!
February 6th, 2023 at 19:00@18
Glenn’s solo stuff is good and sometimes great (SITKOR, The Way It Is etc.) but it has not sold well. His problem was the fact that he had spent the 1980s in a drug induced haze. And that was exactly the time when Purple legacy was solidly established among the next generation of hard rock fans through Rainbow, Whitesnake, Gillan etc. and… another reincarnation of Mk. II. When Glenn woke up circa 1991, grunge was knocking at the front door and the hard rock train had left the station. Now with all the body of his solo work and Mk. III hits he plays clubs, even being in a great shape musically. Meanwhile, David, who lost his voice years ago, plays arenas.
February 6th, 2023 at 21:12@18 Very well said with good perspectives thrown-in. Possibly worth mentioning also, ( respectfully ), is that DC didn’t “whoop” all-over-the-place lol !
Peace !
February 6th, 2023 at 23:04DC/WS is a business, first and foremost. He has been milking the 1987 concept since 2003. I personally don’t find it very interesting, regardless of where he plays. Glenn is more underground, jumping from one outfit to another, hoping to strike commercial gold or just generally restless by nature? Maybe a combination of both. It doesn’t really matter since he has most of his abilities intact and remains interesting to follow as a result. DC and RB are the ones who were able to make the biggest name for themselves outside of DP, but they have been semi-retired for a very long time now. Which leaves GH and DP to actively follow from the “tree”.
February 7th, 2023 at 06:06@21 yea “the whooping” was embarrassing to say the least!!
February 7th, 2023 at 11:09Glenn is an excellent musician, but his predicament has always been and will always be that he is only known by a predominantly white audience with rock’n’roll to hard rock roots, yet his music is heavily influenced by black artists to which your average white rock fan doesn’t really connect. And it’s not just Glenn’s funk leanings and vocal Stevie Wonder’isms, it’s how he writes, most of his material eschews classic rock/pop chord changes.
I love the man, but one thing he is not: a commercial songwriter. In 50 years of a career he has never written or co-written anything that could be viewed as a radio or MTV hit. The KLF’s freak hit What Time Is Love featured no songwriting input from him. Trapeze went largely under the radar, Mk III and IV basked in the glow of Mk II and while recording good albums never wrote something as commercial as Black Night, Strange Kind Of Woman, SOTW or Woman From Tokyo.
And for whatever reason, Glenn never dared go the other way in full, there is Play Me Out, Feel & First Underground Nuclear Kitchen (his three blackest albums), there was that audition as singer for Earth, Wind & Fire, but what he would have needed was a stable musical setting along the lines of Sly & the Family Stone, Mothers Finest, Living Colour or Lenny Kravitz. Or better still: a collaboration with Prince (when I heard Play Me Out again yesterday, it struck how much of it reminded me of some of Prince’s stuff that has been coming out of the vaults more recently, but Prince could unlike Glenn also write pure pop).
So Glenn now has to settle for his eternal musician’s musician niche, which he fills comfortably, but it is of course commercially limiting. And I don’t think we will ever see him in the US RnB ccharts with even excellent stuff like this here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFc1sHTSlN8
Maybe, if Bowie hadn’t moved to Berlin or Glenn not stayed in LA and the Thin White Duke had actually produced Glenn’s work (+ given him some of his magic sparkle and non-rock credibility to a wider audience as well as telling him to tone down the vocals a bit), things might have turned out differently. Look what Bowie’s divine intervention did to the flagging career of Herr James Newell Osterberg aka Iggy Pop.
February 7th, 2023 at 13:58Funny enough when an artist meets another one in the toilet then he becomes labelled as he sounds like the guy he met in the toilet.
February 7th, 2023 at 15:52Glenn doesn’t sound like Stevie Wonder or his music sounds like him.
Just because Jon Lord’s said once in an interview that Glenn was sounding more like him then that should only be viewed light heartily.
The most important thing that an artist leaves to his fans after they departs Earth is their catalogue of live and studio recordings.
To be fair his catalogue of albums is so rich and full of amazing material whether with Deep Purple, Solo, black country communion and the dead daisies.
So sit back and relax and let the future decides his musical contribution in 50 years from now.
The music never lies.
Peace ✌️
I think Uwe sums up Glenn Hughes & his predicament pretty well in many ways. A white boy trying to infiltrate the black scene, so to speak. It has happened as we know, however the traditional soul musicians have that sown up & they know it, it is in their DNA etc. A British white man trying to get it doesn’t work from what I have observed over the decades. White musicians covering other black genres, funk & disco & the blues can sort of work ok, especially the blues although my liking for that is because the white guys I am into play the blues harder & mix it with strong melodic songwriting of sorts. I am not into funk that much & definitely not into soul, so I am probably out of touch with it in so many ways. Another example reversing the trend was Living Colour playing hard metal, that Stain album when I first purchased it 30 years ago really disappointed me. Why? I know metal was really big at that time, but they don’t get it in many ways. They did it ok & live in concert it was incredibly powerful, but their ‘traditional’ funk rock (their first two albums), was so much better. It goes both ways I guess. And please don’t mention the Red Hot Chilli Peppers. Cheers.
February 7th, 2023 at 20:46@25 said qt.”Funny enough, when an artist meets another one in the toilet, then he becomes labelled, as he sounds like the guy he met in the toilet”.
ROTFLMAO !
Peace !
February 7th, 2023 at 22:15Adel, you’re joking, right?
Sure Glenn sounds like a young to mid-period Stevie Wonder! He’s his life time hero, his phrasing and his guttural delivery is Stevie Wonder, the way he employs his falsetto, the jazzy 7th and 9th chords he uses in his songwriting a lot. [We’re not talking here about the “I Just Called (To Say I Love You)”-Stevie Wonder, but the cutting edge one from the 70ies who impressed many white rockers, Jeff Beck among them, with albums such as Talking Book and Innervisions.]
And it’s not just Jon who has observed this, but also Ian Gillan (who rates Glenn’s vocal technique highly, but thinks he is wasting his talent emulating someone else), and last not least Glenn himself who rates Stevie W as his major influence. Tellingly, Stevie has called Glenn “his favorite white singer”, I’m not surprised …
https://www.ultimate-guitar.com/news/general_music_news/deep_purple_legend_glenn_hughes_reacts_to_stevie_wonders_white_singer_remark_about_him_recalls_the_beatles_reaction.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgAbqPL1kTo
You tell me this doesn’t sound like Stevie and I tell you that Yngwie Malmsteen has never listened to Ritchie Blackmore! He uses pretty much every Stevie voice and mannerism imaginable on that track from his first solo album:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0uY9QGmfRQ&list=RDw0uY9QGmfRQ&start_radio=1
For more on how Stevie Wonder shaped Glenn’s style, read this interview here which also tells a lot about the recording of Burn.
https://thepopbreak.com/2018/08/28/the-voice-of-rock-glenn-hughes-on-deep-purples-legacy-stevie-wonder-more/
February 7th, 2023 at 23:35Is it me, or is the song Burn mixed differently from the rest of the album. On Burn I seem to hear Glenn’s bass panned right. I’ve never seen or heard the mentioned before. If that’s true, I wonder why.
February 8th, 2023 at 01:17#26: The RHCP are playing stadiums so I guess they must be doing something right 😉
February 8th, 2023 at 04:47@26…The R.H.C.P. are far too over-rated imo, so I completely agree there with you Sir. They have had a couple of easy-going radio songs for sure with some success, but to last this long & still sell-out stadiums makes my mind boggle. Music for the masses residing in US-of-A. There is an element of that ’60’s “San Francisco Sound” in their music, & I’d suggest it’s that element that keeps them popular.
Stone Temple Pilots blow them to the weeds imo.
That said, it’s good that we all like different things.
Also, it’s highly likely you need to divert some attention to the late Dr.John, for some Gris-gris ! For around $20:00, you “should” still be able to grab a WB Original Artist Series box set of Dr.John…Regretfully they omitted the 3rd album “Remedies” from this 5-disc set, but it remains downloadable of You-Tube for completion of his first 6-albums. Worth your trouble, great, funky authentic, Southern fried music from “Naw-Leans”.
Peace !
February 8th, 2023 at 06:27DC has been milking the 1987 concept since 1987. 😉
February 8th, 2023 at 09:56I’m no RHCP fan, but in an age where a lot of bands are unable to change their set lists from one day to another because they can’t reprogram the backing tracks that fast to which they play along to live, the impromptu jam-fests (or if you like: wank-fests) the Peppers celebrate on each and everyone of their gigs are commendably archaic! They are actually a live band and as improvisations go, RHCP is not that far removed from a Deep Purple or Allman Brothers gig, some of you would be surprised. For that alone they have my respect, even if Anthony Kiedis is not exactly in the Ian Gillan, Glenn Hughes, Paul Rodgers, Ronnie Dio, Graham Bonnet, Robert Plant, Freddie Mercury, Steve Perry or Robert Halford league of rock singers. (The RHCP instrumentalists are all fine and Flea is of course a musical force of nature.)
The late Scott Weiland was mentioned, let me say that probably the most gripping front man performance against all odds I have witnessed was by him. My son, back then a GnR/Slash fan, dragged me to a Velvet Revolver gig (the one where Duff fell down in Cologne), this was when VR where already in their death throes with nasty social network messages being exchanged between Weiland and drummer Matt Sorum. They split up a few days later and that evening were more than 90 minutes late on stage, most likely because of band feuding backstage. During the whole friggin’ gig Weiland did not exchange a single glance or smile with his band ‘buddies’ or even somehow acknowledge their existence (much like Ritchie sometimes in his moods!). Likewise, the band knuckled down to it and performed as if they were oblivious of who was fronting them. What sounds like a recipe for disaster was one incredibly tight, professional and edgy performance that night, it was amazing to see the two warring VR factions at work. And Weiland oozed mysterious star charisma, no comparison to Axl’s one-trick pony’ism (yes, I’ve been to a GnR gig with Slash and Duff too, getting drenched in a monsoon-type rain, I try to be a good father!).
It’s sad that Weiland overdosed not much later on a solo tour, but like Tommy Bolin it was not so much a question of if, but of when.
What a track:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrXyzGvpuxA
February 8th, 2023 at 11:06Regarding TRHCP it isn’t the musicians that I don’t like, it is what they record onto albums. Well back in the 1990’s & around the turn of the century. Not my type of music & I heard plenty of it off the lady I lived with two teenage children. I respect them as musicians & Frusciante is a interesting guitarist & very much influenced by old school players. I did read a live performance review just yesterday from their recent Melbourne gig, A hometown boy Flea is & a damn fine bass player indeed. Chad Smith is a very good drummer highly respected.. I have always admired the fact they do jam on things from what I have read over the years. Am I game enough to weed out the songs looking for live improvisation? An older friend of mine who introduced me to Tull way back & very ‘old school’, never a Prince, Living Colour or RHCP fan back, he loathed them. Much to my shock he told me a year ago he was right into TRHCP. I dropped the phone in dismay. You would have more chance of me liking them, I still cannot believe he is into them after all these years of disdain towards funk rock, hip hop, rap influenced rock bands. Maybe there is hope for me yet. I did have a Living Colour day yesterday & they are still a force. It has been a long time & even some of their music tests me, although they are a melodic band with decent songs to my ears. Just a bit too ‘jivey’ & heavy at times, all good though. Will I succumb to the forces of hysteria & get into TRHCP eventually? Stay tuned folks, same Bat time, same Bat channel. Cheers.
February 8th, 2023 at 20:07Happy 50th to one of the greatest rock albums – ever.
I’ve been lucky to have caught Glenn live (solo) on every recent tour… his voice is still superb and his oft Scandinavian touring companions exemplary musicians… in short they don’t just do justice to the Purple and Trapeze back cat, they own it.
The Burn mix… I’m seem to recall reading (somewhere) Blackmore insisted on a ‘lighter more commercial or radio friendly mix’ – and by that he meant a mix that would sound good on a crappy kitchen, single speaker radio … hence the arguably tinny mix with dominant treble and a very light bass touch … I found it odd that the recent (lol) anniversary remixes failed to address this and can only guess that the bass and drum tracks are as one, making isolating and addressing the lack of bottom end tricky – potentially overpowering things… I live in hope of a proper deep remix that gives Burn a real depth it’s original mix lacks… Stormbringer too lacks true bottom end, even though the lines are more prominent. I’d argue that LLR&R was the first time I started noticing the bass in the mix from the Blackmore back cat… Down to Earth more so, can’t think why … lol.
When Hughes performs Burn era stuff live, by God the bass is front and centre and BOY does it blow you away. Absolutely brilliant.
Rock on.
February 8th, 2023 at 20:32Uwe Hornung@28
February 9th, 2023 at 09:16The facts you have listed with links are facts and no one can deny them.
Thanks for the links 👍😁
To be fair I still love his work for the last 20 years or so and the materials recorded sounds great.
Peace ✌️
As regards up-to-date remasters and remixes, no band of similar stature has been as shabbily treated as Purple. A-friggin’-bys-mal. Every obscure little “almost-famous” outfit has had its back catalog treated with more care, love and respect. Name me another three albums outside of In Rock, Fireball and Machine Head with similar impact and sales that did not see a 50th Anniv. remix and remaster? And I’m not holding my breath for a 50th Anniv. release of Burn either. If they do, I have some recommendations re making Glenn’s bass audible, eg pushing the mids fader up! (Glenn’s bass sound on Burn doesn’t suffer from too little low end, but from an absence of audible mids – mids are the key to making a bass get heard even over a small radio speaker, adding more bass only helps on high quality equipment.)
You really have to wish for some private equity fund buying the rights to Purple’s 70ies material soon so we can see a proper repackaging and release policy develop. I’ll write liner notes for free.
February 9th, 2023 at 14:03Credit to the Peppers for having developed from their fun-funk-punk-rap origins to a band that actually writes songs and manages a tune once in a while. Kiedis has his natural limits (especially rangewise) as a singer, but they at least give it a go. Just imagine if Glenn sang for them!
But again: I’m no fan. But – much like Metallica – they’ve come a long way round from their formative years.
February 9th, 2023 at 16:40With so many artists selling their music ‘rights’ for what ever reason, it does raise the question regarding DP. Something is going to have to happen one day, although it appears it could be a bit of a nightmare scenario. Who owns what at present & what eras, especially the early albums etc. YES sold their back catalogue recently but only the Atlantic Records rights, from the beginning 1968 to 1987 I think it was. Regarding DP remixes etc, who eventually gets to do that & how well it is accomplished is another conundrum. I suppose the BIG question though is WHEN, it may occur after we have all popped our clogs so to speak. Oh well, maybe in our next lives we can pick it all up again & possibly still be here at THS talking about it. One can never tell what the future holds. Cheers.
February 9th, 2023 at 21:04Use Hornung@37
Thanks for explaining the mix issue… and yes you’re spot on re the reissue treatment, it’s (on the whole) woeful when compared to say errmmm every other great-average 60s/70s era band.
Rainbow too, not great when you consider the wealth of live material that the ‘deluxe’ LLR&R could have contained… mind you I was hoping for a proper reissue of the Rainbow debut but understand the masters are lost and I always wanted to hear the string section on Statgazer remixed and made more prominent… again, I understood this not to be an option due to a lack of master tapes… Purple however, well there seems no excuse for a lack of a 5.1 Burn or Stormbringer… it’s a weird and bloody frustrating one.
February 9th, 2023 at 21:18@33…I’m sure Scott is well-pleased with your post Uwe, so thanks for that unexpected surprise !
As for addressing the “Burn” mix, most people are now-days moving into 2.1 computer speakers, & / or 5.1, or even 7.1 home theater / “surround sound” speaker set-ups. The numbers represent 2, 5, or 7 speaker assemblies, with the .1 meaning a “whoofer” or “sub-whoofer”, or large bass-speaker. These .1 “whoofers” are generally adjustable, with a dial available on the back, & you’ll find that you can get the necessary results by tweaking this dial up around 20-30% from your regular set-point. *Logitech make surprisingly good 2.1 computer speakers, possibly the warmest sounding quality computer speakers offered.
And these .1 speakers for home theater packages are easily adaptable into .2 speakers, by buying another “whoofer” lol ! So 5.1 becomes 5.2 etc etc.
If you really enjoy sitting back & diving into your music, “surround sound” is a really great experience, but it may take some getting used to also. And leave the pre-set effects off with regards to the amp for best results imo.
All this to say, is that “Burn” can be restored into full glory with the turning of the .1 bass dial !
Peace !
February 9th, 2023 at 21:22Adel: I’ve never held it against Glenn that he adores Stevie Wonder and took inspiration from him. The rock world is filled with Robert Plant-, Ronnie Dio-, Steve Marriott-, Bon Scott-, Paul Rodgers- and Lou Gramm-wannabes, Glenn is at least original in his choice. Everybody comes from somewhere. Glenn just stands out because he picked someone from outside the traditional rock sphere to pattern himself after, but I like it if music fuses different ingredients. He’s been singing with that Stevie Wonder influence for more than 50 years now since he was a teenager …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zWpaaEn_ZA
I wouldn’t want him to change! And the good thing is: Ronnie Romero can’t copy him! ; – )
MacGregor: I’ll haunt you in the afterlife too!
Kosh: You’re right, Purple’s remaster and remix situation might be appalling, but Rainbow’s is even worse. Same goes for early Whitesnake and Gillan (the band).
February 10th, 2023 at 01:25Regarding the MK3 re releases, I have the Stormbringer 2009 one with both Stereo & 5:1, & the Burn 2004 re release. It can be a different beast all together as Gregster says. What type of sound system one is using, speakers also, what sort of room it is set up in. How good are our ears these days? How critical can we be at times. If we take all that & more into account, well maybe we should just go back to the original mix in the first place. But then that brings us back to re releases etc. Who would have thought listening to our favourite artists could be so difficult at times. I do admire certain people I know who tell me they cannot really hear a difference in sound, mixes & hifi systems. I wish I was like that, keeping it simple I mean. The more options we have the more we want, need & crave. I vote we go for the KISS principle & I don’t mean the band. Cheers.
February 10th, 2023 at 05:15I would bracket Purple’s 60ies and 70ies output in four different eras just by the sound of those albums:
– There is the Mk I era which still sounds British Invasion to my ears, a little archaic even for 1968/69.
– There are In Rock and Fireball: not exactly great, but passable to good English recording studios that let Purple make the transition from sounding like a 60ies band to sounding like a 70ies one.
– There are Machine Head, WDWTWA and Burn with the Rolling Stones Mobile as the state of the art technology of its time letting the band take another sonic leap forward.
– And there are finally Stormbringer and CTTB with the then new Musicland Studios in Munich taking yet another step.
To this day I hear Stormbringer and CTTB as the zenith of getting Purple down on tape in the 70ies for the sheer recording quality of the audio signal source material. Those albums have hardly aged sonically and with both of them the remasters and remixes yielded the best results IMHO and ears – it helps a remaster or remix if the source ingredients are already of extremely good quality. I personally think that the production of all Rainbow albums – from the debut to Bent Out Of Shape – never bettered the sound of Stormbringer and CTTB and, consequently, sounds more dated today.
Stormbringer and CTTB are spectacularly well recorded albums. You can hear everything, any instrument clearly, yet it’s not sterile at all, but vibrant. The quality reminds me of some of the Queen productions of the 80ies and it’s likely no coincidence that these stem from the Musicland Studios as well. Stormbringer even sounds glistening to me. It’s an album at the height of mid-70ies rock star decadence, but it sounds amazing to this day.
[Caveat: I’m only talking about pure sound quality here, other albums were of course more inspired, more iconic or more important for Purple’s career.]
February 10th, 2023 at 13:01I think CTTB is the best sounding DP album and by some margin. Just so exciting even to this day with everyone at the peak of their powers. Bolin’s playing has more impact here than on any other recording of his I’ve heard. Just the way his parts are featured in the mix. Brilliant. Stormbringer is great as far as the song material goes but the production sounds a lot thinner compared to CTTB. Starting with Paicey.
February 10th, 2023 at 17:28Yes the later 1970’s Purple records do ‘jump out’ at you when playing them on a decent hifi system, they always have. Ian Paice sitting at the mixing desk probably would have something to do with that also. his drums have that crispness & clarity to them. A friend of mine whilst not a big Deep Purple listener but did own In Rock, Fireball & Machine Head as many rock music followers did back then. He didn’t follow the band after those 3 albums, but did hear them later on at my abode & always commented on the sound coming off the record. ‘Listen to that hi hat & that snare drum, that is superb’. He did rave about Paice as a drummer also, but the sound of the recordings were what really impressed him. ‘Why can’t other bands sound like that’ was a frequent comment. I did listen to the remaster of Burn yesterday in different settings on my sound system. Also the remixed songs, with the bass a little more ‘out there’, it sounded good I thought, good enough for me these days. I will listen to Stormbinger today, both in stereo & surround. My hearing problem these days is the higher frequencies are too sharp, anything in life in that register can be harsh, so I tend to try to lower the top end to compensate. Of course I blame Black Sabbath & Deep Purple for that. Off to my lawyer now to sue them for all they have. ‘My hearing’ etc etc, those were the days. Cheers.
February 10th, 2023 at 20:13Daniel, there is another reason why CTTB sounds so good: Unlike Blackmore, who always felt a little awkward in the studio and thought he did his best work live (I disagree, Blackmore has delivered brilliant studio solos, often off the cuff, throughout his career), Tommy, an avid home recording buff (just think of how much of that stuff has been released by the Tommy Bolin Archives), relished being in the studio and overdubbing things. CTTB is a guitar overdubs fest, yet what makes it stand out is that Tommy was so at ease in the studio the results never came out contrived or overdone, but sounded vibrant and natural. But what you hear on CTTB is in actual fact a Tommy Bolin guitar army.
February 11th, 2023 at 17:50Yes, but I am thinking a lot of this had to with Birch. Compare it with Bolin’s work on the James Gang albums just 1-2 years earlier. He was likely on the same level as a guitar player then yet he sounds a lot more impressive on CTTB. Of course, it doesn’t hurt having IP and GH at the peak of their powers backing him. Just listen to the bass tone on CTTB. The best in GH’s recording output.
February 12th, 2023 at 05:02You have to consider the studios, Daniel, Bang wasn’t recorded in one of the renowned US studios for rock (and produced by the band at the time), but Musicland was in 1975 cutting edge state of the art. There is also a two-and-a-half year period between the respective recordings of the albums – in mid-seventies audio recording development that is a long time. Even a Martin Birch sounded better with a better studio at his hands. But on Bang you already hear Tommy’s way of multi-tracking himself in the studio – quite some layered guitar tracks there too.
But that is not to take anything away from Birch as an engineer-producer, I loved his sound on the Purple albums. He and the band were a great match. And while Birch has done good work with other bands too, his work with Purple is even a notch better. (I would add the PAL album to his greatest work as well, that is one hell of a production/engineering job.)
I always consider Bang a sister album to CTTB – it has the same ebullience, Tommy bursting with creativity and elevating two already very established bands through his enthusiasm. But Bang is audibly an American production while CTTB – though the most American sounding Purple album – retains a certain Brit’ness through Birch’s influence.
At the beginning of CTTB, while still setting up, he and Bolin had an early altercation how things were to be done in the studio (to the horror of the onlooking other Purple members), but they got along well afterwards. Birch realized two things: (i) Tommy played totally on feel and wasn’t as technical as Ritchie, (ii) he was at ease in the studio and open for many things.
On Private Eyes, you can actually hear a lot of influence from the CTTB production. Bringing up the Hammond in the overall sound was one aspect.
February 12th, 2023 at 15:00I’m listening to Deep Purple’s Burn right now and finally realized why, although I’m a sick Purple fan, I never listened to the record very often and didn’t like the sound: the original (also CD) record runs about 2% too fast ( Production tricks to make the recording more interesting were often used on single releases, supposedly to make the music sound “more intense”) . The original recordings probably sounded fatter, rounder, because they were a bit slower (pitch), also in terms of pitch, you can distorted upwards (about an eighth note). That makes half a minute faster per LP side and if you turn the turntable (on the Technics you can set this on the calibrated scale) 2% slower, the sound is awesome and the voices are no longer so overdriven, especially with the songs Lay Down Stay Down, Mistreated and Burn really makes a difference and the disc now sounds 10x better, you have to try it with your record-player (vinyl). I couldn’t find anything about it on the web except that Proceedings with producers from time to time is common. Even the supposed “remix” versions are too fast… how could they just distort their own music like that… the funny thing is that I’ll never hear the disc on CD again… not even as a stream!
February 23rd, 2023 at 20:22I never knew that Little Ian’s extravagant playing on Burn was born out of boredom – LOL:
“We were down in a place in Wales, and the guys were running a part of the song that would become ’Burn,’” Paice remembers. “They were going over and over it, and I was bored stiff. And as they did it one more time I just started to solo under the chords they were playing — staying in time but totally ignoring what they were doing. And they all stopped and said, ’That was great. That’s what it needed. Do it again.’”
March 13th, 2023 at 19:56That is what thinking ‘outside the box’ does. Try something different, totally different etc. I am not surprised by that process with Ian Paice as I have often thought it would be a pure improvisational moment that created that drumming, more than a premeditated thought. Have to love progressive music & Paice was that sort of drummer at that moment in time, the early to mid 1970’s. Cheers.
March 14th, 2023 at 00:29