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Top five on the planet
Black Country Communion are on the cover of UK’s Powerplay magazine (#274, June 2024), with a Glenn Hughes interview inside. It should not come as a surprise that being shy is just not in his vocabulary.
Black Country Communion return after a seven year absence with glorious new album ‘V’. We chat to Glenn Hughes about the supergroup, which he believes has the potential to be one of the top five bands on the planet, and we ask him the big question that everyone wants answered: will the band ever tour again?
The issue can be ordered through the publisher, albeit overseas shipping is quite stiff and there seems to be no digital option.
Thanks to Benny Holmström for the info.
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing
One of the top 5 bands on the planet? Which planet is he talking about?
June 3rd, 2024 at 15:34Sigh, Glenn can sometimes be a little self-damaging with the things he says. 🙄
June 3rd, 2024 at 21:58California Dream indeed for ole Hughes’y. Oh dear poor Glenn, still hoping, still craving, still needing something. Delusion has it’s drawbacks, it always has. Good comedy though. The worst thing for many individuals can be for a camera to be placed in front of them & turned on. Also a microphone of course, especially for spoken word & sometimes more. I need something I need something. 50 years on & the record is still stuck in the same groove. Cheers.
June 3rd, 2024 at 23:13Glenn is his own sunshine 24/7, a blessed man thru and thru.
Personally, I would think so that a band where the lead guitarist looks like the bass tech of the frontman will have a difficult time in the top five echelons. Just sayin’.
June 4th, 2024 at 08:40I’m sure they are among the top five bands. I’ve been a fan of this group since the very beginning. Much better option for Glenn of The Dead Daisies . Songs with V album “Stay Free” (better), “Enlighten” …are good.
June 4th, 2024 at 10:53June will be a good month for the DP family and the old RnR school
I was under the impression that Glen was off drugs. Obviously not.
June 4th, 2024 at 12:50“you must be joking man what are you smoking”.
Anyway there are loads of people locked up for being delusional. Unfortunately there are loads who are not.
Well that might have been ok to say in the 70s. I mean THE 70s – not HIS 70s … But even in the 70s he was in his twenties and could have grown out of this kind of teenage superlatives. I mean can you imagine any mature musician – apart from GH obviously – talking like that? Gotta love it!
June 4th, 2024 at 13:45@6
June 4th, 2024 at 15:34I don’t disagree but a little harsh, but still pretty funny.
Glenn is being his natural, very enthusiastic self. Nothing more than that. The level of talent in that band is undeniable and so is the potential……if only the guitarist could find it in his heart to commit long term to being a team player in BCC as opposed to continually striking out on his own neo- bluesman solo career.
June 4th, 2024 at 16:39Funniest sentence of the year… Thanks Glenn !
June 4th, 2024 at 18:33https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8w638t_MtU
June 4th, 2024 at 18:46“Glenn is being his natural, very enthusiastic self.”
DeeperPurps has a way with de-escalating, non-inflammatory language. He would have likely referred to Ritchie taking the ABC camera to task at CalJam as “a mild, inadvertent bump between two stage-located electric/electronic devices”. 🤣
June 4th, 2024 at 21:01Right you are @12 Uwe! Simply incidental contact which in the excitement of the moment, afforded an opportunty to test the resilience of the participants’ respective apparatus….to the delight of the audience! 😁
June 5th, 2024 at 12:43@9
June 5th, 2024 at 14:14Music is a job and a career, too, like you say. And in career terms, Joe is much better off going solo than being the banjo player in BCC. BCC is his side job, so to speak.
Georgivs @14….That guitar player has never given BCC a proper chance to flourish. Had he done so 15 years ago when the unit first formed, BCC would probably be indeed, one of he top bands on the planet. However, several times already, everybody in the band has had to wait around for Joe to come down off his perch and play with them. He’s a decent guitarist who is not living up to his full potential….he chooses instead to confine himself to that little niche neo-blues thing. As Ritchie Blackmore stated long ago and many times, there is only so far you can take the blues, and it gets boring real fast.
June 5th, 2024 at 20:21@13: This reminds me of an English book we had which featured an exercise (explaining descriptions) about an overweight boy called Peter. Peter had two aunts, one which loved him and one which despised him. The good aunt would chortle “Peter is pleasantly plump!” 💕 while the bad aunt would snap: “He’s as obese as a pig!” 🐷
DeeperPurps is a good aunt. 🤗😇
June 6th, 2024 at 03:37Uwe @16…😂 Good ol’ Auntie Purplette! Maybe I’ll have to change my moniker.
June 6th, 2024 at 15:31Let’s be realistic: To Joe Bonamassa BCC is a theme ride in an entertainment park like Haunted House, only captioned “70ies Rock Stardom (Without Teenage Groupies)”. And Glenn is his conferencier/Beetlejuice for that. Joe likes to go there for a good scare once in a while, but he doesn’t want to live in it! I’ve seen him at BCC gigs, he is entertained to be part of what is going on on stage and marvels at Glenn’s gung-ho grandeur and John Bonham’s son drumming behind him, but he doesn’t take it to be (his) real life.
Although I’m no great JoBo fan, I have to grant it to him that he can play guitar, write songs and sing them too. Telling him to make BCC a priority is a bit like those people still imploring Eric Clapton today to grab a Gibson and a Marshall amp, grow his hair long, wear flares and play fiery improvisational blues hard rock in a trio like Cream. He’s been there and done it – and by the end of the 60ies made the very conscious (and then commercially risky) choice to turn into a singer/songwriter/guitarist with a bluesy edge that plays MOR music to a more adult audience. That audience is similar to what JoBo has and there the case must rest even though I prefer Cream to most of Clapton’s solo career work too.
I never expected BCC to receive a significant share of JoBo’s time, it’s just one of his many projects. And Glenn should (have) know(n) that too (a long time ago).
June 6th, 2024 at 21:32@18 Uwe. Agreed. It’s simply not in the cards, and never really has been. For JoBo, BCC has always been THE side project. Back in 2012 when all that came to a head with a certain public acrimony on display and hurt feelings, Glenn & Co. would have been far better off looking for a new guitarist. With the name power and chops of Hughes, Bonham Jr. and Sherinian, surely there must have been another top-notch guitarist out there waiting in the wings somewhere. I’m thinking of players such as Ritchie Kotzen, or how about Doug Aldritch. Or somebody else.
BCC….for me it has always been bittersweet. A great line-up and some good albums, but no staying power, no momentum, and not living up to its full potential. A different guitarist could have changed all that.
June 7th, 2024 at 11:17Doug Aldrich might indeed have been a good fit. When he toured with Glenn in trio format, they were really cooking. I have heard no one perform Trapeze songs better – I was flabbergasted how funky Aldrich could be, that was always hidden in the WS wall of sound. He’s also a genuinely nice guy. Probably the best Glenn Hughes gig I ever witnessed, it was like Trapeze on steroids.
June 7th, 2024 at 20:12@20 Uwe, absolutely! I have seen Glenn with his other touring guitarists Soren Andersen and Jeff Kolman and those shows have been good, but… the best GH show I ever saw was with Doug Aldrich. That was in 2015 and you’re right, he was both heavy and funky. Another guitarist I was thinking might be an interesting experiment for Glenn & Co. to work with…….George Lynch. Massively talented guitarist who can shred, but is also solidly grounded in blues-based rock too.
June 7th, 2024 at 23:52In my opinion BCC really lacks a proper songwriting talent…And Jo Bo, as good as he is on guitar (and he is, although not exceptional), isn’t that guy.
Glenn alone can write good songs but nothing fabulous (and I’d say the same for pretty much every member of the DP family) so the playing and singing is great but noboby in the rock world can name a few great songs by those guys…and maybe even one. It’s always the same kind of relatively good Glennish (rock format) songs. To me he needs a Gary Moore / Pat Thrall kind op partner…but we all know that his reputation prevents him for a lot of collaborations so…
June 9th, 2024 at 14:30“Glenn alone can write good songs but nothing fabulous (and I’d say the same for pretty much every member of the DP family) …”
Someone finally says it! I love DP and all its affiliations to death, but there is no Lennon/McCartney, Elton John, Billy Joel or Brian Wilson among them. They are all excellent musicians and live players, they can improvise (even Ritchie – contrary to some views) and it’s not like they cannot once in a while write something incredibly catchy that moves a lot of people like SOTW or Here I Go Again (with the aid of Bermie Marsden, always a tunesmith) by chance or accident, but the band was never a songwriters’ work bench with consistent output.
That doesn’t matter though, the band had/has other undeniable strengths. DP’s wholly deserved reputation is first and foremost in having forged a spound with the Hammond/lead guitar twin attack and Little Ian’s swing and the high calibre instrumentalists in their ranks always allowed them to use the live format for something other than just reproducing their records. They could indulge in leaving the script. Depending on your tastes, that is either instrumental masturbation or enticingly brilliant, taking you on a musical journey.
And I agree, Peter, Glenn and Pat Thrall were a match made in music heaven (and cocaine hell) – it’s too bad that they never managed to achieve any longevity with their joint talents and chemistry. I’d love to hear what they left in the can when they aborted their last reunion attempt some 15 years ago or so.
June 10th, 2024 at 18:30A touch unfair Uwe to compare Purple affiliated songwriters with that lot. Although I do wonder why you have Billy Joel in there? And Elton John had Bernie Taupin writing the lyrics during the golden era. Maybe Pete Townshend, Paul Simon & Ian Anderson would suffice. Especially Townshend & Anderson as they fronted rock bands per se. Anyway I am just nit picking for the sake of it. I know what you mean although the Purps & many other rock bands were not trying to become ‘pop stars’ were they? Well at least some of them weren’t. Cue ole Cov’s, ‘I need something
June 11th, 2024 at 00:34I need something’ sorry that was the other guy. Cheers.
Billy Joel in his prime was an amazing and varied songwriter, both musically and lyrically (plus an excellent piano player). Sir Elton was no lyricist, but I admire how he put music to Bernie Taupin’s often great lyrics and sang them as if they were his own. Still, I should have written Elton John/Bernie Taupin, you’re right.
Townshend and Paul Simon are songwriters too (so was Bob Seger), my list wasn’t complete. Ian Anderson’s songwriting depends very much on him performing the songs himself, have you ever heard a convincing cover of a Tull song? I haven’t though some of the stuff Martin Barre has “bluesed up” came close. To me, the quality of a true songwriter is also that his songs “work” (sometimes even better) when he is not performing them himself.
It’s not just a question of pop versus rock either (though rock by its very nature relies more on the live performance aspect than pop): Of course Bob Dylan was/is a great songwriter as well and he was never really pop and in the Rolling Thunder Revue Era pretty much rock (add to that also when The Band backed him). If Mick Ronson or Robbie Robertson is your lead guitarist, then I think you can pin the “rock” label on yourself.
How could I forget to mention David Bowie when it comes to songwriting? Inexcusable! His “All The Young Dudes” saved Mott the Hoople on the verge of breakup.
June 11th, 2024 at 15:29Yes the solo songwriters are usually more in the limelight respect wise than collaborating songwriters, although there are a few exceptions from the earlier days of popular music. Many bands didn’t have a solo writer as such. Dylan indeed is a good case for other musicians enhancing his songs, one reason could be because of his poor vocals at times no doubt. Iron Maiden did a good version of Tull’s Cross Eyed Mary years ago & as I stated at the Midge Ure comment, he did Living in the Past. Tull are not as known commercially though, so the popular artists like EJ, BJ, BD etc & Bowie also are more likely to have others covering their songs as the years pass by. That has been happening since the 50’s onwards. Plus all those songwriters who never played their own songs, writing & arranging for other people. There is definitely a knack to it. Cheers.
June 11th, 2024 at 21:59Oh well, kinda related here:
Hey, this apparently slipped underneath our radar at the time, it was released during the US Tour 2022 via merchandise stands at the gigs and you can still get it via The Dead Daisies website (for a king’s ransom because of the expensive shipping, I just ordered it, ouch!):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ4DQ8Svk4U
Makes for a nice comparison!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTfNINPcjU8
I like both versions, but The Dead Daisies one is of course wilder. Glenn gives it a nice 70ies underground vibe. But the Purple version is perhaps the more original take on Peter’s everGreen (pun kinda forced, I admit it!).
July 8th, 2024 at 06:12And another one!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SSeUSyLE34
July 8th, 2024 at 06:22